allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Elechi Paints a Rosy South East (Page 1 of 3)

Governor Martin Elechi of Ebonyi state recently opened up to journalists on his experience so far on the saddle as the governor of Ebonyi state. He took time out to talk about the volume of debt he inherited from his predecessor.

Your Excellency, during your inaugural address, you spoke of reforms in the local government system, giving the impression of possible reduction in the number of local government areas and development centres. But few months on the saddle you created additional development centres to bring the total number of councils and development centres in the state from 64 to 77. With the attendant multiplication of personal and overhead costs, do you think that allocations to these councils and development centres will meet the development targets in the areas?

The issue of local government creation is a constitutional one. We want to ensure that the constitutional prevision was respected otherwise we could like Lagos state and some other states in the past get into constitutional problems of great legal dimensions and so on and so forth. So we thought it neater and safer to retain the local governments as they are in the constitution but then there was a problem of the entire system which was called local government areas without, in fact, being local government areas. In order to separate the local government areas proper from those residual we decided to rename them additional development centres just for purposes of clear administration and for purposes of ensuring that we have no constitutional conflict.

Having said that, it is still an experiment but you will agree with me that a situation which allow all parts of the local government area to have a say, to participate in the administration of the local government area is better than allowing just some cluster of people at the helm of affairs to disburse the funds the way they liked. People are happier (with development centres). But what it means is that the jumbo salaries that used to be enjoyed by the former operatives will now be slashed in order to ensure that it goes round. That way you still have the objective of development and at the same time ensure that the resources are spread. We have not started monitoring, that is part of what we promised to do; that is part of what the law expects us to do to ensure that the disbursement is so done that not more than 30% of the revenue is for personal emoluments and 10 %for overhead, while you devote the remainder for physical development. In some local government areas, because of the number of development centres comprised therein, even the entire amount of money received from Abuja and federation account is not enough for salaries alone and we say let each L.G.A. cut its coat according to its cloth. We don't want to be too rigid; we want the people to police themselves.

You inherited the sum of N2.996 billion owed contractors by the previous administration. How much of that have you paid? Secondly, Ebonyi State University needed N500 million to tackle its accreditation problem. To what extent has the state government gone in tackling the issue?

Thank you. I said that from the hand over note, we had an outstanding debt of N2.996 billion. That was as much as the hand over note revealed, but along the line we still received other claims which upon verification were validated so that has also increased the debt profile. But I can assure you that within the first four months all those debts were cleared. However, a company like Strabag had outstanding debt of over N900 million which we had difficulty in positioning within the handover note. You know accounting is a problem; plus or minus here and there. And because of the enormity of the debt we agreed with the contractors to spread that money over a long period, paying about N200 million at a time. I don't know as at this moment how much is outstanding, the ministry of finance and the Accountant- Generals office and or the Ministry of Works will be able to know. So when ever we discover genuine debts, even if they were not in the handover note we try to respect them because that is in keeping with the promise I made immediately I was sworn in during my inaugural address; any genuine contractual obligation will be honored: the matter of whether it is in the handover note or not is a mere administrative ritual you expect anywhere.

On the state university, yes we were able to critically examine their presentation and we have made available to them, I think in three installments, a total of N350 million and before November ,2007, they had scaled through their accreditation and they wrote to us thanking us and expressing satisfaction. So they don't have any accreditation problem as at now.

In your inaugural speech, you did talk about relocating the Abakpa main market, but one year down the line nothing seems to be happening there; secondly, when one visits Ebonyi Cable television, what is going on there is anything but a television station, even the road leading to the station is bad, so we want to know what government is doing?

If at any time, I fail to give you the full answer please come back with your second bullet (laughter). Yes with regard to Abakpa main market it is true that nothing has been done, it is a statement of fact but it does not imply that we have taken our holiday from our promise. Earlier impression we had was that the Ochudo city was a bigger layout than the existing metropolis. That has turned out not to be so from the power point projection we saw here it was a very small fraction of the existing city. We had thought that upon completion of design of the new city , there will be provision for a new market. That still is possible but perhaps not the size of the market we wound want to have in a big city like Abakaliki. We are now placed in a situation where we have to rethink; when the actual drawings are completed ,we will then see whether the provision in the Ochudo master plan is big enough to accommodate that size of market or we should go elsewhere. Good a thing, expansion of the city is not only towards Ochudo city, we are expanding to all directions. The large expanse of land acquired by the previous regime have not been fully paid for and because the amount is so much we scattered it, to pay within a period of 10 months. So by the time we know the size of land within our possession ,we will decide on the best place to locate a mega market like the type you have in mind, but for now I don't think that we have jettisoned the idea.

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