Uzodimma: Why I Withheld Innoson’s N2.3bn Balance For Vehicles Supplied To Imo Government

The Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, has explained why his administration may not complete the payment for 122 vehicles it purchased from Innoson motors.

The governor shared a video on his verified Facebook page on Friday, explaining how the local vehicle manufacturer ran into problems with his administration.

THE WHISTLER had reported that Innoson Vehicles sued the Imo State Government for N2.5 billion for not paying balance of N2,547,666,435 for the vehicles it supplied to the state government.

The Anambra-based car manufacturer said the Imo Government’s refusal to pay up made it impossible for its company to service a loan it took from Keystone Bank Limited at 10 percent interest rate.

But in his reaction, Governor Uzodimma said Innoson’s failure to meet some of the terms of the contract prompted the state government to withhold the balance for the supplied vehicles.

Uzodimma claimed that about 70 percent of the cars supplied by Innoson had broken down and that part of the contract terms was for the company to set up a workshop in Imo State, where such vehicles could be serviced.

“There is nothing wrong with Innoson motors. At the beginning of this government because of the insecurities in Imo state, we had cause to buy a lot of vehicles, and I decided to chose Innoson because he is a local manufacturer. We chose to patronize him.

“And we placed orders for him to supply us a vehicle of over 5.3 billion. Incidentally, there is no workshop in Imo State were his vehicle can be repaired and part of the agreement was he will put a workshop in place.

“As I speak to you, 70 percent of the vehicles are grounded. We’ve paid him over 3billion naira and no workshop to maintain the vehicles.

“And this is tax payers money, I’m saying as promised, come and do the workshop so we can repair the vehicles and get values from them before we can pay more money and he is going about to create sentiments.

“I came also from the private sector, we don’t throw away money, we have to get value from money.

“So if he thinks it’s by going around rather than bringing the mobile workshop which he promised….in fact his promise was that he will put the mobile workshop first on ground for us to be servicing the vehicles and then he will build a permanent workshop.

“So, I thought it was a good thing patronizing our local manufacturer and he has refused to live up to expectation but it will be resolved. I advise him to allow wise council to prevail,” said the governor.