Samuel Oyadongha
21 August 2008
interview
SINCE his return to Creek Havens, Governor Timipre Sylva has been busy drawing up plans to provide basice infrastructure as well as dividends of democracy to the people of Bayelsa State.
But in this interview, he argues that it is expedient for the Federal Government to provide funds to the state as a way of alleviating poverty from the land. He further argues that Bayelsa State has not been a beneficiary of federal presence. Excerpts:
The journey so far
I am happy that you are all in Bayelsa State and you have seen that Bayelsa is not in a state of war. In fact, you have seen that Bayelsa is one of the most peaceful states but unfortunately we have a problem in this country and the problem is the way we report this country. And unfortunately, the way this country is being reported by our reporters always present us in a way we don't desire.
Militancy
Each time you hear about Bayelsa's analysis or some kind of story about militancy, that truly speaking, is coming to an end in this state. Since October last year we have not had any form of kidnap in this state. And of course we are engaging the militants; we have come to some kind of arrangement. Some of them are beginning to demobilise but these are things that should be highlighted instead of highlighting the bad news.
This government came in and one of the things we believe was that we needed to create prosperity; a united state and we needed to have a secured environment. So, the first thing we tackled was security with a lot of success. And right now, we have recorded a lot of achievements with the militants and right now, we are making a lot of progress.
Infrastructure
Then we decided that we are going to get all the contractors who have left site to come back and the contractors came back and started work. We thought the best thing to do in Bayelsa State was to create opportunities, so we gave out a lot of construction work which created a lot of jobs. We awarded contracts on 43 roads within Yenagoa. At the same time, we gave the contract for the construction of the road to Oporoma and of course the three senatorial roads, the road to Brass which is to be awarded and the road to Ekeremor which is ongoing.
In the area of education, what we want to do is to build three standard model secondary schools one in each senatorial district. We are actually concentrating on the secondary sector because we feel that the secondary school segment in Bayelsa constitutes the biggest problem. When we came in 2007, we recorded 13 per cent success at WAEC exams, which meant that 87 per cent of all those who sat for WAEC exams did not qualify to move up.
So you find out that you have a very viable pool from which the militants recruit their soldiers from. That is why we are concentrating on the secondary school system and I believe that in no time, we are going to create a viable society that will promote activities that will bring about wealth creation because we believe that the single most important thing in Bayelsa is to create wealth because poverty is one of the biggest issues we have, not only in Bayelsa, but Nigeria.
We believe that once we're able to achieve that, we would bring down the incidence of militancy and criminality naturally.
All these we have put together and we have very clear measurement parameters. In a few years, we believe that we will start to see results.
It's been two months since you came back as executive governor of Bayelsa Sate and the state executive council has not been constituted. Secondly, all these projects and development you mentioned did not reflect anything from the federal side; is there no federal presence here?
Well, the constitution does not give me any deadline or time frame within which to present the executive council. I decided to consult very widely to make sure that the people that we are to put on board are well intentioned and well positioned. Not to say that the people I had were not well intentioned but I want to make sure that we maximize the fresh opportunity.
For your information, I have submitted the list of commissioners to the Assembly. So, the ball is no longer in my court, it is in court of the Assembly. I am sure that they will soon invite the commissioners designate and interview them and clear them for me to swear them in.
On the issue of federal presence, there is a lot of federal presence, the oil companies are 60 per cent NNPC owned and they are all here. Talking about roads, we have a lot of problem with the federal presence here. We don't really have much of it and that is because of the terrain, I think.
We thought that the federal presence in a state is supposed to promote the development of a state but here in Bayelsa our experience is that the federal presence tends to take away from us rather than develop us because when federal parastatals come here, Bayelsa State will provide them accommodation, sometimes cars and office.
We are hoping that the federal government will come to our rescue. On the issue of roads, we are discussing with the federal government. I have been discussing with the honourable Minister of Transportation who happens to come from Bayelsa State and we are hoping that this season we are going to have some good federal presence but now I must tell you that federal presence in Bayelsa is less than desirable.
What efforts are you and your brother governors in the South-South making to pool resources together to harness the tourism potentials of the region especially as the sector is to be driven by good road network when viewed against the backdrop of the ailing East-West road?
You touched a very strong point in the East-West road; it is a road that is very close to the heart of very Niger Deltan because that is the road that touches almost all states in the Niger Delta area. The federal government has done well, unfortunately on this road, especially at this time, I am not in a position to blame the federal government because they have done everything and work was going on, you know what happened some two weeks ago.
If it is our desire as Niger Deltans, for us to bring development to our area, then why are our people going to tamper with people who are bringing development to us? The only reason why the road construction has stopped is because of the activities of some of these misguided elements, because anybody that goes to stop a construction of a road like that can only be misguided because this road is so important to us.
We are hoping that the construction will resume again. We are doing everything to make sure that Julius Berger gets back to site because that road is very important to the development of Bayelsa State.
Before you went on the judicial leave, the hope of the people of Bayelsa was that you were coming to effect real change and indeed you came and the signs were all there. On the financial profile of the state you told us at inception that you met a very buoyant profile. But somewhere along the line we started hearing rumours of your administration taking huge loans.
Today, if you ask the average Bayelsan about his or her thinking about your administration they will tell you they are not sure because of this loan. In this circumstance, how would you reassure the people of the state by telling them the financial position of the state and what the people should expect from your administration now that you are back.
I am sure that you are not speaking for Bayelsans because I take polls myself. You cannot tell me if you ask the average man on the street, they will tell you they are not sure, if you are not sure you can say it and I am going to tell you the whole story. I have nothing to hide. We must learn what financial engineering means, the way to actually increase wealth is by liberalising, and that is the word that is all over the world now.
In fact, in financial management, you should even be happy that I made some future financial commitment because that is the only way to become prudent in management. Because by future commitment what you have done is to reduce your head room for liquidity which means that you have already committed.
When I came, what I said was that I met an investment portfolio including shares and others of about N20billion and in less than a year, I was able to increase that portfolio to N34 billion now and that is where we are. And that is the portfolio that cannot be touched because that is the future of Bayelsa.
Right now, I am trying to grow that portfolio to a hundred billion naira and may go even further that is my short term target and that portfolio is going to be left for anybody who takes over. That is what I said I met. You don't look at only the liability, you must also look at the asset and former administration left assets worth about N20 billion and it is what I said.
Unfortunately, we had a problem when I came in, militancy was at its peak, the oil production was at its ebb in this state. Our allocation per month at that time was about N4 billion, including salaries and overhead; we are spending over N4 to N5 billion, we are the first state to implement the 15 per cent. We implemented 15 per cent across board from civil servants, teachers and local government. How much tax do people pay in the state?
I access some funds, of course I'm not saying I didn't and I went through due process, all the processes were followed. I sent my budget to the Assembly in which it was clear to them what we were expecting from the federation account and from the capital receipts and capital receipts are loans you can get from the banks, and the House of Assembly passed it as a law and it's my responsibility to implement the law.
If I didn't access it, it means I won't have implemented the law that was passed by the House of Assembly.You have given me the mandate to run the state I do not need a referendum on everything I want to do. I do my job very well and I actually get my feedback, I have measurement parameters, I measure my performance and I tell you I have done very well and what we have put on ground is commensurate to what we have accessed and anybody can go and check. This is one administration that is built on transparency.
Bayelsa needs to develop a culture and tourism ministry and pay less attention to militancy and cultism, what plans do you have for tourism development in the state?
When you say develop tourism it means you want tourists to come in because without tourists coming in it is a waste of time. We have to get people from outside to be interested in our festivals. The Argungun festival is what it is today because internationally people are interested but you can't do that in Bayelsa unless you have taken away militancy.
So it is our collective responsibility, especially the press. I said it before, it is the stories you put out that people know about us and it is unfortunate that it is Bayelsans and Niger Deltans that are putting these stories. The press should ensure that national interest, Niger Delta interest, Bayelsa interest come first in their reportage of events and then we would make progress. On culture and tourism ministry, I am going to establish it as a Tourism Bureau because we are really developing tourism and we are going to concentrate on it, so it will be announced very soon.
What would your administration do to convince people that you are a leader with a sense of accountability and what is your administration doing to assist teachers in the state?
I believe that we are one of the most accountable state governments in Nigeria. We are the first government in Nigeria to sign on the Bayelsa Expenditure and Income Transparency Initiative. We were the first government in Nigeria to establish a functional due process unit. We are actually moving the government from an analog platform to an e-government platform.
That means that you can access everything we do on the website. We are a government that operates strictly the budget, if it is in the budget it is a law and we must implement that law. That is what we are doing and that is why I believe that we are fully accountable to the people and we are also in a position to explain everything we do and I believe that this will make us qualify as one of the most accountable state governments in Nigeria.
On the issue of TSS, in Bayelsa we are doing very well, you must have read in the press that Bayelsa civil servants are actually the most highly paid. I think that we must look at the production side as well because this is a non producer economy; we are just a consumer economy.
In India, the civil servants salary level is not as high as ours but the salaries are able to purchase more because that economy is a producing economy. Right now, I think that if we implement the TSS scale on top of our 15 per cent, the state will be crippled, so I don't believe in the TSS scale.
Do you believe you can eradicate militancy in Bayelsa in isolation without some kind of synergy and collaboration with other states within the region?
Definitely, other governors and I are collaborating but I cannot talk about the efforts in other states. We have taken very clear steps that have given us clear results. When we came in we started the triple E approach - the Engagement, Empowerment and Enforcement.
Through this approach, we have been able to get a lot of the militants to discuss with us and we have been able to bring down the incidence here. Now we are moving to a state where some of them are willing to demobilise, that means that they are giving us all their arms and bringing all their youths for us to train. If we can succeed with all of them, there will be no militancy in the state and I believe that we can achieve that and we are on our road to achieving that.
What is the nature of the intervention of the NDDC in Bayelsa State?
I cannot sit here and say exactly what projects the NDDC has undertaken here, but the commission has actually done some intervention work in Bayelsa State . We are also collaborating together. Like the industrial district, NDDC and Bayelsa State government are collaborating on it but what we are looking forward to in the future is for more collaboration so that we can bring our budget together and deliver bigger dividends to our people and soon you will begin to see some of those values that'll be delivered to our people.
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