Our attention has been drawn to a post made by Promise Uzoma Okoro, accusing Sir Mac Atasie of "hijacking all the revenues accruing to the Local Government in Abia State" through his company, Nextzon Advisory Limited. While our response is not intended to massage the ego of the publisher, who went as far as accusing Sir Mac of severally clashing with Executive Chairmen," it is essential to set the record straight.
Here are the facts:
1. Mac Atasie or Nextzon Advisory did not have access to LGA revenue within the time mentioned.
2. The collection of internally generated Revenue is guided by law, and Promise Uzoma Okoro and his sponsors have not pointed to any section of the Abia BIR law that Nextzon violated.
3. A proposal was presented to the then LGA chairmen to deploy a revenue management system for all the Local Government Areas in the State which they unanimously agreed to. Christian Kamalu and other Local Government Chairmen were signatories to this agreement.
4. All the Local Government Areas received their funds religiously as Mac and his team liased with the BIR to ensure that.
5. The state consolidated revenue law 2020 mandates that all revenues, including those of the Local Government, must be collected by the Revenue Board.
6. Revenue collection is not a joke and costs a significant amount of money; therefore, any private sector company playing a key role will surely spend a lot and need to be paid. Nextzon Advisory is not registered as a charity organization.
7. Is Promise Uzoma Okoro aware that under his watch as Consultant, the informal sector IGR grew from less than N150 million a year for markets and transport to an average of N1 billion a year for the two years of 2021 and 2022? Promise should be properly informed, having served as Deputy Chairman of a Local Government, or a part of KPMG's Process Review?
8. While we are aware via a now-deleted post by Promise Uzoma Okoro, stating that he is acting on the instructions of Christian Kamalu to probe LGA revenue under Nextzon Advisory, one begins to wonder what the motive/reason for this baseless attack on Mac Atasie (who has long moved on from the affairs of Abia politics or IGR) is. Even the Christian Kamalu himself was mostly serving as LGA Chairman throughout his tenure from the USA where he permanently lives with his family.
While we wait for Mr. Okoro to explain how Nextzon and Sir Mac Atasie clashed with the supposed Executive Chairmen on a project that was duly contracted to another partner company by the same LGA Chairmen, he should be informed that Mac Atasie and the management of Nextzon do not give in to blackmail. He can take this message to his sponsors.
Jude Ahukanna
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