As controversies continue to trail the discovery of N4.3b allegedly lodged in an account in Zenith Bank by the Ondo State Government, the administration of former Governor Olusegun Agagu has been absolved of any complicity in the matter.
The Minister of State for Niger Delta, Chief Tayo Alasoadura, who served as Commissioner for Finance in the Agagu administration, said all bank accounts operated by the administration were in the name of Ondo State Government and all were on record.
According to him, the inability of the administration to properly hand over to the Olusegun Mimiko administration in 2009, due to the Court of Appeal judgement that sacked Agagu as governor, may have contributed to the error in documentation.
Alasoadura, who spoke in a telephone chat with our heritage reporters , blamed the bank for not calling the attention of the new administration to such account since the government operated accounts in all banks operating in the state, as a policy.
The minister recalled setting the record straight in 2009 to say that the Agagu administration left over N30billion in the treasury of the government as against a debt of N170billion being claimed by Mimiko at the time.
The funds left by the Agagu administration for the Mimiko administration, Alasoadura added, included N2.9billion funds belonging to the local governments in the state.
The Minister, however, commended the Akeredolu administration for discovering the account and the money but added that the House of Assembly has done the right thing by asking questions, especially on the interest that has accrued on the funds in the account since the bank must have been using the money to trade.
