Udom Emmanuel, Akwa Ibom state Governor has revealed the reasons behind the rejection of 10 vehicles donated by ExxonMobil in the fight against COVID-19 Pandemic.
Udom who spoke to some select state stations on Saturday evening, disclosed the donated vehicles were old and would cost the government a lot of money to maintain because of the scarcity of the vehicle parts.
Akwa Ibom state Governor said “Giving me those vehicles will increase my maintenance costs so also reliability. If people use the vehicle for contact tracing, for instance, and it stops them in a remote village how can you cope with that? ExxonMobil donated other things. They gave us two Ambulances, we accepted those ones.
The Governor who claimed not to harbour any ill-feelings against the oil giant said his administration accepted the hospital beds donated even though they were below standard.
“They also gave us hospital beds. Though the beds didn’t match our General Hospital standard of 2019/2020 beds, we still accepted that. At least we can use them in our Primary Healthcare centres So let people not talk as if we rejected everything they gave to us.
“Please don’t misunderstand us. I love corporate entities. I work very well with them. We didn’t accept those vehicles so that we don’t increase our maintenance cost.
ALSO READ: We’ll kick out saboteurs, traitors among us – Nnamdi Kanu warns IPOB members