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Corruption And Underdevelopment
[A CASE STUDY OF HALLIBURTON]
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 7]
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According to Itauma, their agreement stipulated that each party
should give a three months notice before pulling out of a partnership.
But Foxcroft breached that agreement. Itauma also disclosed that fox
croft had stop assisting the centre long before his decision to severe
ties with him Perhaps worried that his scam has been exposed.fox croft
recently placed a paid advertorial in a national daily in Nigeria to
counter the allegation of fraud leveled against him by Akwa ibom
government.In that advertorial signed by felicities Holman, chair of
trustees, stepping stones, which was published in august 6 2011 edition
of the nation, the fox croft admitted that his organization received a
total of £1.338millon pounds or ₦334.5 million in the past three year
(2009-2011) and claimed to have spent 1.057 million pounds translating
to more than 300million on project to improve the lives of Nigeria
children. He stated that the remaining funds are kept in their charity
bank account for continued support of their partner in Nigeria.Ongoing
it also said its model school had been funding 121 scholarship places at
the school for indigent students; that it sunk two boreholes at its
neighbour model school: 40 children since 2010; that it has trained a
total of 1,145 teachers from government school to fast track literacy
method known as jolly phonies and equally used the funds to provide
40000 workbook free for its pupils and handbook to 1,145 teachers in
participating schools.The bogus claimed by stepping stones has further
helped to strengthen the fact available that fox croft is a fraudster
news watch investigation have revealed that all what stepping stone
Nigerian , claimed to have done with the money he collected was false.
For
instance, SSN said it realized a total of £1.338 million pounds or
₦334.5 million out of which it claimed to have spent £1.057 million
pounds or ₦264.25 million for projects and overheads, but news watch
gathered that between 2008 and 2011, SSN had realized more than three
million pounds and to date, the amount it remitted to CRARN is not up to
£60,000 pounds. He claims that 50 percent of the pupils attending the
school are provided with scholarship which also takes care of books and
uniform, of the pupils on scholarship, he said that 25 percent of them
are orphans .but news watch investigation have proved otherwise .the
school is just like a normal private school without any scholarship
scheme in place for orphan. The act prohibits child labour which it
includes hawking, using a child to beg for alms, domestic labour and
child trafficking. It also prescribes an imprisonment term of 10 to 15
years for anyone accusing a child of witchcraft.The judicial panel
instituted by Akpabio on November 22, 2010 to investigate the extent of
child witchcraft and related child abuse was another positive measure
aimed at checking child abuse in the state. The panel was setup to
investigate the Fraudulent activities of Foxcraft and Itauma who are
currently on the wanted list by the government. One of the
recommendations of the panel was that the state government should curb
the activities of the NGOs like stepping stones Nigeria and child
rehabilitation network. The panel also recommended that effort should be
made to recover all the money collected by Fox croft and Itauma on
behalf of the P a g e | 32
children at Itauma home and other such
child center. It was on the strength of the panel’s recommendation that
the CRARN CENTRE was sealed off and the children evacuated to government
rehabilitation home in Uyo. But how did Foxcroft and Itauma meet to
plot the scam? Investigation revealed that Foxcroft came to Nigeria in
2003, to research on oil industry in Mobil Producing Nigeria, Eket, as
part of the thesis for his Master’s degree programmed under the
University of Uyo and University of Lancaster student linkage
programmed. While in Eket, he lodged at Royalty Hotel along Eket Oron
Road and was later evicted from the hotel when he could no longer pay
the bill. It was during his sojourn in Eket that he met Itauma ho
intimated him on the plight of the children. Not long after their
meeting, they came up with the idea to do a documentary on the plight of
the children. In their thinking, and rightly so , doing a documentary
would not only project the good works of Itauma which was hitherto
unknown o many outside Eket local government area of Akwa Ibom state and
environs, it would bring in financial support from Nigeria and the
international community. So, Foxcroft had to go back to the UK to
facilitate the production of the documentary. As at that time, he had no
money to even reconfirm his flight ticket back to the UK. New swatch
gathered that it as Itauma and his group that provided the money for his
ticket. While in Britain, he developed the concept but lacked financial
backing to carry on. So, he sold the documentary idea to Red
Label films owned by the trio of Mag Garvans, Tracy
McVeigh and Hoost Van Der Valk. Garvans then co-opted Marvin Tracey of
the London Guardian of the UK and Sophia Okonedo, a Jewish born Nigerian
journalist and mobilized them for the Akwa Ibom documentary.
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