Abia Political Analysis—APA

ABIA MUST BE LIBERATED!

Civil Service Reforms under Soludo and the gains..

The Executive Governor of Anambra Prof Chukwuma Soludo's state is gradually facing the task of restructuring and reforming the Anambra state civil service among other initiatives since assumption of office.

The importance of an effective and efficient civil service cannot be over emphasized. A good example of a reformed civil service that has changed the face of governance and service to the people is Kaduna State under Mallam El-rufia.

Kaduna and Lagos State is one of the few states that have used same civil service reform lock down to achieve transformation and regeneration of their states in all spheres of development.

Their civil service is very efficient and functional like the private sector where promotion and advancement in career is predicated on dedication and hard work. The work environment is as perfect as private sector as the govt provides conducive environment for the workers as they are exposed to training retraining, workshops both within and outside Kaduna .

The same can also be said about Anambra as Soloudo recently engaged a world class consultancy firm KPMG on the recruitment of permanent secretaries of Anambra origin. The government is looking outside the original civil servants to inject new ideas and strategies of building a new Anambra of their choice .

A friend who left UBA as a senior manager is being considered as a permanent secretary in Anambra state civil service as he has gone through three layers of interviews. He does not need to come from Soludo's village to be made a Permanent Secretary. Am sure we know the implications of such recruitment as these new PS will bring their private sector knowledge to the job.

The bureaucracy and lack of initiative on old civil service (servants ) will be automatically dealt with and the positive results will soon be noticed. Most workers will be proud of their job as civil servants .

In Abia, Leadership is key to our solution and the ability of the leader to attract quality hands and also have sincerity of purpose .

Soludo is gradually building the critical mass of IGR revenue generation. Yesterday the Governor formally announced what each building will pay as waste management fee by separating the fees payable by those under the urban local governments and core rural local governments. The Government went further to state what each building is to pay monthly from duplex to bungalow ,flats and warehouses .( Transparency)

The reforms on the motor parks and bus terminals are also enforce. He demonstrated his ability to take hard decisions. He did not pander with the motor unions to be seen as politically correct. The banned union's are working hard to stop the implementation but the Governor is not shifting ground. (Ability to take hard decisions is a must have quality for anybody interested in Abia Governorship come 2023)

Good knowledge of the Job, capacity, competence, exposure are important qualities we need from our new CEO which Abians will hire come 2023.

Soludo is not being led by the nose by those briefcase consultants that are only after our money .We are not hearing that former Governor referred us . He has demonstrated deep knowledge of what needs to be done and is following the trajectory already mapped out. Abia needs a very knowledgeable Governor who understands the problems and not those that will learn on the job as we are already in ICU ( intensive care unit )

In our State years back . Firstmoney was introduced as the collection agency or portal that will handle the collections of taxes and fees under the Abia IGR. Firstmoney which is a product of first bank Nigeria runs on the platform of Interswtich and their charges were very moderate and pocket friendly. They agreed to charge 100.00 one hundred naria per transaction .This means if you are paying N10.000 ( ten thousand Naira)as fees,firstmoney takes only 100.00 .They also capped an agreed amount for any payment above N1m. This means that they will only charge N2.000 ( two thousand per transaction (even when 20m is paid as taxes or fees through firstmoney.

Because of greed and to ensure they milk the state especially when they know that first bank or Interswtich being a reputable organisation will not play the "Abia ball "decided to frustrate the bank out of that collation business after deploying alot of resources.

This same group invited their own private company ( uchenna and sons consultants)for same job and are now charging 6% six percent per transaction. The implication is that if 1m is paid as tax, this group of fraudsters collects N60.000.00 ( sixty thousand naira)against N100 that would have been collected by firstmoney/ interstwich.

The implication is that over 20% of whatever Abia state government collects monthly which is about N700m goes into private pocket under consultancy .

This is one of the reasons Soludo on assumption decided to sack all the briefcase carrying vendors and currently rebuilding Anambra quietly.

Abia will not be left out .The opportunity is in our hands to change the narrative of our State and the time is now . The chapter five on my book" My Abia experience "capture more on these intrigues on IGR and reasons why we are at same point years after.

Ekwe D**e Nde Abia
11/10/22

ABIA need LIBERATION
And many sane minds will make that happen!

To be analyzed soon!

Akwa Ibom @35 and our Abia State .

I don't know how many of us followed the just concluded 35 years anniversary of Akwa Ibom State , the developments and evolution of what used to be a stigmatized people (State).

Today by all standards ,Akwa Ibom is a model state that should be studied by any serious analyst of contemporary development or evolution of a modern state in the southern part of Nigeria.

From the creation 35 years ago , Akwa Ibom as a state has been on steady rise to greatness and development not minding the challenges of State creation.

From La Meridien(Tourism,hospitality and entertainment)at inception which looked like misplaced priority then to basic infrastructure (modern roads, fly overs with flood water control , Sports ( nest of champions that got the attention of NFF for international matches. They have what is called integrated development strategy as each sector rubs off on the other.
Aviation ( Ibom Air ) as they have proved many wrong on State involvement in what should be private business. Agriculture ( green house for tomatoes, pepper and recently coconut farming as they now have a milling plant for extraction of coconut oil.( The campaign is for every body to plant the improved species of coconut tree on any available space)

They moved further to creating of small industries ( stringe manufacturing, water for injection plant. Car assembling plant and Airbus hub for airplane "B" checks the only in west africa . Eket is among few locations that have always had 24 hrs power supply for those of us that reference Aba as the first .We have about two other locations in Nigeria.

Urban renewal project is top notch as fantastic beautification of roundabouts with adorning lights at night, pedestrian walk way etc . ( not ogbaje lightning we see at Ebonyi)

Landmark structures that dots the space, the 21 story building smart office for Oil and gas companies and other corporates ..The ecumenical centre or worship centre is another architectural masterpiece.

Successive governments in Akwa Ibom have just proved that with proper visioning and planning most challenging issues can be solved with modern technology . They constructed 8.4 km under ground and surface drainage that takes flood water out of Uyo township. It transverse 3 local governments of Akwa Ibom with the NEWMAP project of N22b by world bank but our own of N27b ended at story level till date . They did 10 lanes of 8km that welcomes you to Akwa Ibom from the airport angle that about 90km of single lane .

What of health. They have constructed and remodeled about 15 general hospitals. Procured about 50 containers of modern medical equipment for their general hospitals and 20 already delivered while some are being cleared at Onne . They used to come to Onitsha Ngwa hospital in Obingwa for their health needs in the 90s . In Abia we celebrate outdated and obsolete equipment looking for where to be dumped in Africa due to health concerns.

We may argue they receive 3 times what we get from Abuja monthly allocation but we can see how they are being deployed . They( Govt ) still steal in Akwa Ibom just like any other state but they have conscience. We don't have conscience in Abia when looting is involved and that's why we are running round in cycles. That is why complete change is being advocated if we are to move forward.

Their State university is also fantastic as per education. Yes I just ran into a Prof of medicine at Enugu who is among the accreditation team for REMA university medical college Aba. I never knew such a University exist not to talk about medical college.

REMA will get their medical accreditation next few days and our brothers and sisters from Absuth can transfer to living world hospital. ( Painful)

Last week I wrote against the Govt decision to pay only N77m representing N11m per month for 7 months as salaries of resident doctors out of about N900m for 7 months if all were to be paid.

Have all segments of Absuth workers resumed ? No work is going on as services are yet to be restored . Let's keep praying for all of us in Abia .

Our problems are deeper than we think but sincere and sacrificial leadership is key to recovery .

We still have those who are passionate for a better Abia.

Happy Sunday ndi Abia

Ekwe D**e

PDP will remain PDP they are!