DESPITE THE PAINS, ABIA WILL SURELY SURVIVE

Our Governor is performing, yes Governor Okezie Victor Ikpeazu is doing well and I pray for a non stop development because we are determined to show class. He has completed over 26 roads within 9 months in office and many more roads are ongoing. The Governor is concretely working to change the narrative in our Health Sector, Education, Agric and infrastructural deficits.

Since we all want him to succeed and to succeed, we must show support regardless of our political affiliation and interest.
Doing development is capital intensive and the situation we are in currently calls for understanding and support. It’s time for all of us including those working as civil servants, and pensioners to readjust.

The fact is that Abia State monthly Allocation from FAAC is dropping drastically with no hope of recovering. The State Exchequer otherwise known as the Commissioner for Finance recently returned with an allocation of 1.9 billion Naira whereas the wage bill alone is about 3 billion Naira after sorting out the unfortunate padded payroll order by some unscrupulous account officers. It’s becoming too obvious that we must build and rely on our Internally Generated Revenue to drive the wheel of development in our State.

Time to block all the leakages is now. However, as we do so, we must trust the man in charge to lead us out of this unfortunate economic situation. His target is to make Abia fully viable within a limited time for Abia to stand firm economically using Aba as the economic drive.

We have seen Aba Glass Industry returned to production. And it is well known to many that Golden Guinea Breweries will begin production on or before June this year just as we believe that our Governor will soon extend the same measures and capacity to other moribund industries like the Ceramics Company Umuahia.

Lastly, I strongly believe that he has the capacity and the political will to accomplish all of his set goals.

Obed Asiegbu
SSA egovernance & Strategy