Victor Ekpo, Cross River Water Board’s managing director, has accused the corporation’s staff of corruption and blamed the state’s politicians’ and residents’ refusal to pay N1.2 billion debt for its hampered service delivery.

Mr Ekpo stated this while addressing journalists in Calabar on Tuesday.

He disclosed that the N1.2 billion debt covered January 2020 to March 2021 unpaid bills, and had made it impossible to replace broken downpipes, fix the generators and buy chemicals for water treatment.

The water board MD, however, expressed regret that prominent residents, particularly politicians, owed the bulk of the debt. He stressed that since the debtors refused to pay despite several appeals, the board would publish their names to compel them to pay.

Mr Ekpo, who advocated the outright privatisation of the board, said its revenue plummeted from about N50 million in 2007 to less than N1 million when he took over in January 2020.

“My first discovery here is the corruption in the board. Some of the staff turned the place into money-making ventures for themselves. While some of them created a means of collecting revenue to their personal account, others engaged in vandalism of key components of the board’s generating sets and stealing pipes,” Mr Ekpo revealed.

He added, “Or how do you explain the situation where a staff procured her own PoS and started collecting and channeling revenue of the board to her personal account.”

(NAN)