Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo has dismissed allegations of budget padding for some projects by margins as wide as 300 per cent in some ministries.
This is contained in a statement by his Press Secretary, Christian Aburime, on Thursday.
Reacting to an article titled, ” Budget padding scandal hits Anambra State Government”, Soludo said ”criminals” of different types displaced by his government were fighting back with propaganda.
“For clarity, it is important we state that we are not oblivious of the diversionary antics of those whose lucrative criminal enterprise is being smoked out by the renewed fight against all forms of criminality in the State, housed in various camps and bushes perpetrating heinous crimes.
”Anambra no longer has free money to feed the greed of those whose source of livelihood is government money and patronage as a result of free oil money which sadly stopped while assuring that there will be value for every penny spent.
”The claims that the commissioner for works refused to appear before the House of Assembly to defend his ministry’s budget on June 29 is false.
“We owe it as a duty to Anambra to ensure that every penny of our borrowed funds is accounted for, and deployed to building quality infrastructure, and not for consumption”, he added.
