There was mild drama in the Ministry of Finance Conference Room, Calabar, Cross River State, early today, Wednesday, May 25, 2016, at a meeting called by the newly constituted Cross River State Inland Waterways Agency, CRSIWA, to interface with stakeholders in the water and marine sector in the state, www.calitown.com can report.
Mid way into the meeting, CRIWA Director-General, Ani Esin, was rudely interrupted by a group of young men, affected by the recent dissolution of the Special Task Force On Revenue, overseeing operations at the Marina and Tank farms in Calabar. Specifically, the young men insisted that Esin was behind the dissolution of the Task Force, via a press release dated May 19, 2016 and signed by Asuquo Ekpenyong, CRS Commissioner for Finance, following the directives of state governor, Ben Ayade.
The D-G’s explanations seem to have fallen on deaf ears as the young men, mostly members of the task force, rained curses on him and threatened to deal with him. Calm was only restored after a few persons at the meeting intervened and helped escort the young men downstairs.
Sources at the venue of the meeting maintained to www.calitown.com that members of the task force may have been ill-advised into believing that their dissolution was instigated by Esin and his team to take over the operations of the task force. “Let me tell you that CRIWA was established by law and those people who do not understand that a task force is an ad-hoc arrangement should go back to school”, another source said. The D-G and his visibly angry team, refused to speak with www.calitown.com at the time of going to press.