The Managing Director of Grandi Projetti Construction International Nigeria Limited, Mr. Jack Afara, a Palestinian national,Tuesday, instructed the Judicial Commission of Inquiry on Contracts that he labored on Lamonde Hotel, Owerri, owned by means of Senator Rochas Okorocha.
Afara, who disclosed this whilst speakme from the witness box, stated he did no longer understand that he by no means knew that the hotel’s parking lot was once now not phase of Government House.
His words:–
“I had 9 jobs connected to, that have been attached to Government House task and every of them had contract figures connected to it. I labored on a 2,300 rectangular metres of Lamonde Hotel’s parking lot. I idea it used to be one of the Government House projects. It used to be really worth N22 million.
“This Lamonde Hotel job grew to be clear to me when I finally noticed a signboard, displaying that it was once a hotel.
I was once now not paid N395 million for Government House projects.” On the involvement of his agency in the reshaping of the Imo Broadcasting Corporation’s, IBC, body of workers quarters and transmitting station, Mr. Afara said: “When I started out work there (IBC), I by no means knew that the governor was once going to trade the premises to Rochas Foundation College.”
Continuing, Afara stated that the IBC Quarters and the adjoining roads fee N195 million, stressing that he had an intervening time certificates for the work he did. Answering a query on the Urualla Erosion Control project, Mr. Afara stated he was once solely paid N60 million, out of an earned certificates of N128.6 million for the Urualla Erosion Control project.
He expressed shock that the Rochas Okorocha administration paid the sum of N4.8 billion to some other company, which he stated did no longer do any job on the erosion manage site.
“My Lord, I am speechless. It is stunning to hear that a organisation used to be entirely paid N4.8 billion for the Urualla Erosion Control project. My Lord, I did the whole thing on this site. No different character did something here. I have images to assist what I did at the site”, Afara advised the commission.
While declaring that he additionally owns Mid East Construction Company Limited, Afara however, denied that the organisation did any N75,205,630 contract at Primary School 2, Orlu, for which the sum of N20 million was once allegedly paid to his company.
Afara in a similar way disclosed a odd practice, the place contractors had been anticipated to signal and credit open cheques in the Government House, every time some cash was once paid to them. “Each time we had been given some money, we had been pressured to signal and savings open cheques to the tune of the monies given to us.
Most times, I will write to my bank, stopping the cheques when jobs for which I was once paid, have been performed or when I ran quick of funds”, Afara said.
