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Dr. Oscar Ofuka
By Akpan David, Calabar
Out of the eight landlords cocoa communities of Etung Local Government Area of Cross River State, five have received royalty payments for their plantations.
Out of the N30 million government owed to the landlord communities, more than N12.5m has been paid to the landlords.
This was confirmed by the Chairman of Etung Cocoa Landlords Communities Committee, in the state, AIG Njangor Egbe Ngom.
He was reacting to the publications in social media that former special adviser to the governor on cocoa development and control, Dr Oscar Ofuka had interfered with the payments.
The chairman explained that payments are the old debts owed the landlords, but that the actual money remains about N115m which is yet to come.
“We have about N24m in our account. We would have paid this amount to the communities long ago. It is just that we want to do the calculations to enable us distribute the money equitably, ” he said.
He refuted claims making the rounds in some quarters in the state that previous administration paid no dime as royalty to landlord’s communities.
Speaking to journalists, committee chairman stressed that the insinuations about diversions and nonpayment of royalties by previous government were false.
“The news publication is not true; we have been paid some money, although not all. The truth is that state government owed us some monies and has paid us part of the money.
‘We want to know about the cocoa, in terms of how they yield, identify areas that is called category A, category B and C. We have to know
where the locations are, which community they belong to, and calculate the money and pay them, otherwise we would have paid all”, he maintained.
The committee stressed that once the committee gets the table which has a formula to be used for sharing the money from former Special Adviser on Cocoa Development and Control, it would be easy to do the payment to the benefitting communities so that people won’t be left out.
“I have told them nobody can divert money when I am here. I am a retired AIG. I ‘m not only a devoted Christian but a pastor who preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ.“
Also speaking, former commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Oliver Orok, affirmed that money had been paid paid via Smartgov platform to landlord communities said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Oscar Ofuka has denied any wrong doings alleging that the accusations were masterminded by individuals who have personal issues against him than administration.
“I’m shocked with what I just read that I had continued to allocate cocoa plots to people after expiration of my tenure. This is completely false allegation.
“The allocation that we did stopped when administration of Prof. Ben Ayade ended. Since then, nobody has allocated any cocoa plot.
“In fact, we allocated about one thousand and some hectares, with about three thousand hectares left for the present government to make allocation. The problem associated with landlord communities had been laid to rest. That is one of the greatest achievements of the Ayade’s administration,” he noted.
