Women Affairs Commissioner embezzles N201m rehabilitation fund for Women Dev Centre

* Contractors spits on Commissioner for non-payment of owed sums for work done
* This is the worst women affairs commissioner we’ve ever had – Woman Leader

Dr. Glory Edet

One of the meeting points for women in Akwa Ibom state – the Akwa Ibom state women Development Center is currently in a state of disrepair and decay following the unpatriotic decision of the returning Commissioner for Women Affairs Dr Glory Edet to squander a whooping sum of N201 million naira released to her for the rehabilitation of the Center by the former administration. Our reporter can authoritatively report that as disclosed in the painstaking investigative effort of our team of editors, the Women Development Center was just unlucky to have fallen into the hands of the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Dr Glory Edet thereby leading to the unfortunate abandonment of the rehabilitation work as the rehabilitation for Ibom Hall Facility which was awarded around the same period with the Women Development Center had long be completed and tastefully furnished.

It was gathered that the former Commissioner had told Governor Akpabio that Akwa Ibom Women has nominated her to plead with the Governor to immediately look into the issue of the lack of a rallying point to hold their meetings and discuss issues bothering on women welfare since the Women Development Center was usually flooded and the seats, as well as the air-conditioning system needed to be replaced.
In response, former Governor Godswill Akpabio had directed that the sum of N201 million naira be released to the Commissioner for Women Affairs to cover the complete filling and landscaping of the facility as well as the replacement of furniture and fittings in the Center.
But investigation by the Ink Newspaper has however revealed that the Women Affairs Commissioner had fallen into the path of allegedly embezzling more than half of the funds as the only job done in the facility had been the filling of the frontage with red earth and the purchase of about 20 new chairs to sprinkle on the old red chairs which Governor Akpabio  had instructed her to change.
Disclosing what went down during the aborted efforts to rehabilitate the center, one of the manual labourers who worked in the site said they were underpaid throughout the period they worked at the facility, lamenting that they had to go ahead with the job they lacked other source of livelihood.
“There is no day that people did not quarrel here o. Even you might find out from the guy whom they brought to paint the building inside out. When the guy gave them the quotation for a high quality paint, they told they guy that they could even leave the facility like that without painting afterall, government was soon going to come to an end.” The manual labourer told us in Ibibio dialect.
However, the Ink Newspaper was directed to the contractor meant to handle the fixing of the Gate in the facility and he lamented that he had almost involved the police before he could get the cost price for his gate which he was originally meant to fix at the Center.
“Some of the people who work they, I am told left part of their money in anger in the hands of the Commissioner’s agent. Me, I have sworn I can never work there again. Let them go and get another person to fix the gate I sold to them.
“In the meantime, a woman leader in the state who had pleaded to speak on conditions of strict anonymity citing persecutions by the Commissioner has lampooned Dr Glory Edet over what she described as her ineptitude in handling the issues of welfare of the women in Akwa Ibom state.
“I have been a woman leader since the days of Hon Mrs Eunice Thomas to even Hon Helen Akpabio we have never had it this worse in the state. So let me ask, if we did not have a caring former first lady who sometimes used to bypass Dr Glory Edet and look into the affairs of women, would have been our fate as women?
Come to the Ministry of Women Affairs and see how this Dr Glory Edet talks down on Women who come to present cases bothering on women welfare to her. To be honest, ask a lot of women, the general prayer is that someone who has the empathy for women comes to take over from her as soon as possible. I repeat, she is the worst we have ever had!”
Efforts to speak with the Women Affairs Commissioner proved abortive as text message sent to her phone was not responded to.