Scholarship,  Empowerment Schemes Not Constituency Funds – Abe

Senator Magnus Ngei Abe,
the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the Rivers South East Senatorial District re-run election, has said that the empowerment programmes he embarked upon in the Senatorial District while at the National Assembly were funded from his private pocket and not from the constituency project funds.
Abe who was a member of the upper chamber in the 7th Assembly made this clarifications while Speaking on a live radio programme in Port Harcourt “Talk of the Town”,  said although he was given the privilege to nominate a project every year by the National Assembly, he was never the contractor.
According to him, “In the first year, I nominated a primary school in Zaakpon and Oyigbo. It was built by the Federal Ministry of Education under the then minister of state, who is now the Governor of Rivers state. I was not the contractor. In the second year, I nominated the building in the University of Port Harcourt, which serve s my entire Senatorial District and beyond. That building was also built by the federal Ministry of Education. I nominated another project, which is the building in the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, which is my own immediate University that I attended. It was built by Ministry of Education. The money was not given to me, I never saw it. Now, the last time, I nominated the General Hospital at Teerabor for renovation, which is carried out by the federal Ministry of Health”, he said.
He further stated that his scholarship and empowerment programmes were all from his personal purse and promised that he would continue to give back to the people in appreciation of their support within the ambit of his resources.
Abe debunked the story of each Senator being given the sum of N500million as constituency project funds describing it as a figment of the imagination of the peddlers.
“At no point in time was any money given to me. The things that are my own personal projects that I did, are things that I sourced and funded on my own. The electrification projects and scholarship scheme were funded by me, from my own resources. This is money I would have used to buy cars, build houses. It is not money being given to me by the federal government”.
He called on the general public to discountenance such rumours by political jobbers whose stock in trade is to malign his image but has failed.