Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has called on the people of the state to exercise patience and understanding with his administration, stating that he intends to deliver on his campaign promises especially in the area of infrastructure and economic development.

Speaking at a reception organized for him by Edo Citizens resident in Lagos, Oshiomhole explained that the delay in the delivery of his campaign promises was as a result of the need to ensure proper planning and adequate research on targeted projects, such as road construction around the state capital and infrastructural development across the state.

He said: "We discovered that we cannot address all the problems and challenges in the state at once, hence we decided to tackle it on a gradual basis. This informed our adoption of a two-point agenda, focusing on education and infrastructure in the current financial year. We realized that if we decided to do everything at once, we would only be able to do little with the resources at our disposal and the impact will not be felt.

We have called in consultants and contractors and they are presently undertaking proper assessment of the situation in the state and hope to come out with a plan for the road network in the state, especially the capital. This study will last for about three months and hopefully, then, we intend to commence the reconstruction and rehabilitation of roads and other infrastructure in the state. So we call for patience and understanding from the people of the state. Very soon we will commence work and this will not be delayed or abandoned until they are completed."

He lamented the high level of connivance between public servants and contractors to inflate government's contract, noting that this has helped in no small measure in worsening the plight of people in the state as in most cases, the projects are abandoned.

He noted that the state is confronted with a lot of challenges, especially in the area of revenue generation, funds to meet up with its obligations and rot in the state's public service.

He bemoaned the failure of organisations and individuals in the state to pay the appropriate taxes to the government, adding that this informed its decision to reform the state's tax law.

He disclosed that with the new tax law, it hopes to generate N1.2 billion from companies in the state, N2 billion from Internally Generated Revenue and about N150 million from farmers using government land.

He blamed the problem in the state's civil service to failure of previous administrations to train the civil servants, helping them keep abreast of modern day realities, noting that it is hell-bent on re-orientating the state's civil service.

According to Oshiomhole, "Our major priority is re-orientating the public service. We discovered that public servants are more of public masters and public abusers. Majority of the public servants aid contractors to defraud the state, by providing false information on the operations and execution of government's contracts by the contractors. "