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By Vincent Ujumadu

GOVERNOR Willie Obiano of Anambra State, last week unfolded what he described as a stimulus package to cushion the harsh effects of the current economic recession in the country on the people of the state.  In the package, the governor suspended levies imposed on operators of Keke, commercial motorcycles, hawkers and school children, all of which amounted to about N250 million.

In this interview with Saturday Vanguard, the state commissioner for Information and Communication Strategy, Ogbuefi Tony Nnachetta said the package has nothing to do with politics but meant to reduce hardship on the people on the lower rung of the economy.

Excerpts.

This package came at a time many state governments were looking for ways of improving their revenue base and here in Anambra, the governor is suspending some aspects of revenue windows. What informed this decision?

My governor is a man who sees the future. In this cabinet, there are six senior bankers and five chartered accountants. It means that we are not scared of numbers. So, when we talk about recession, we are considering what it means for Ndi Anambra. Bearing this in mind, all of us constituted a think- tank to evolve ways of reducing the effect of the recession on the people.

Gov. Obiano

By last week, we brought it down using statistics and assumptions that can work and the government had to inject all the ideas into the state broadcast which the governor made on the economic package for our people.

The governor has proposed N20 billion stimulus package to this effect and he is at the same time, being reactive and proactive. The whole idea is to relieve the burden on the poor and the vulnerable members of the society. Among those burdens were the levies imposed on them in the markets, on Keke and commercial motorcycle operators, hawkers, drivers, among others, who live with these levies alongside their normal taxes.

Government earns about N250 million from these levies and most of these levies contain leakages which do not even come into government coffers. We have said to them, don’t pay again. We did this because we noticed that after they paid to government, they also pay to three other units. We have observed that some people are riding on the back of government to charge them and we say no to this. We could not abolish it completely because it was put in place by the law of the House of Assembly and so, we merely suspended it.

It is a very bold economic decision. It was not the issue of whether the federal government had done it or not. And as far as we know, no state government had done something like this. We called it stimulus package that will take N20 billion in four main parts namely, tax intervention, social intervention, tax relief and infrastructure development.  Under it, every graduate from Anambra State University will get employment.

We are taking 300 persons into agriculture. We are funding the clearing of 500 hectares of land in the three senatorial zones of the state. We have asked for 500 persons in our road maintenance programme.

Small businesses are the bedrock of our communities’ economic growth and the banks cannot give this category of people loans and so the state government has decided to inject N3 billion into this area to assist them. We will give the money to Anambra Small Business Agency, ASBA. ASBA had already shepherded N1.5 billion CBN fund for Ndi.

Anambra for the growth of small business and the state government has put down another N3 billion to support the venture. The interest rate is just 9%. This is a major development as this money is neither coming from the CBN, nor the commercial banks. Our people in the Diaspora have also been injecting money into the state and this has been of great assistance to our people.

The beneficiaries are expected to form cooperatives of 10 persons, or a beneficiary can get somebody on Grade Level 14 in government to stand as surety for him. It is something we are grateful to God for giving us the determination to do it right because it has recorded a huge success.

The other intervention programme is the one we told the communities to choose what they want and as at Monday, more than 160 communities out of 178 in the state had come up with their projects. Some of the communities chose markets, some chose maternities, some chose water supply, some chose civic centres, some chose abattoirs, and so on.

Once the project is chosen, the contractor from that community will come and bid for it in an open and transparent manner. The projects will be ready by December this year. Localizing the projects will have economic benefits on the people of the various communities and this also helps the economy of the state at large. We think what the governor has done is a case study in the country and we hope to run it with vigour and competence.

The governor is determined to prove that governance is service where you prove to people, all that one learnt from the various business schools he attended for the benefit of the people.

Some people believe that the package is political, considering that the governorship election will take place in this state next year, coupled with the fact that the state would be losing a lot of revenue especially at a time most state governments were looking for ways of improving their 1GR.

Government is there for the good of the people. There is need for people to be prepared before going into government by acquiring the necessary training. The question that should be asked is, did Anambra create the recession? The answer is no. Did Anambra fix the date for the governorship election next year? The answer is also no. All these are events that had been there before the decision by the governor to unfold the package. We thank God that the governor prepared himself very well for this job.

To answer the question, the stimulus package has nothing to do with the governor’s second term. Recession is a creation completely outside our control. We are reacting to what will help our people survive. If we don’t do anything, many of our people will be socially destroyed before the so-called election. We have to be alive before the election. What we are doing has to do with the fact that the governor, fortunately, is well educated and set up a team that shares the same values with him.

It is a team work. We have been talking about it for so long. So we are not playing politics. It is something that determines the life and death of Ndi Anmbra. We had expected a situation whereby the governor and members of his cabinet cut their emoluments to drive home the seriousness of this package. In fact that had been done long ago. It was done during the first quarter of this year.

By the time we did our first quarter review, emoluments were reduced across board for all political office holders. We didn’t want to make it an issue anyway because the reason it was done was to ensure that salaries are promptly paid and other government businesses taken care of with ease.

What is the level of the state’s IGR?

It has been growing from N450 million when we came in, to N1.2billion and now N1.7 billion. We have not been doing any magic, but we are ensuring that the leakages are blocked. If we can sustain this for the next one year, we will hit N2.2 billion monthly.

Various figures had been quoted as investments so far attracted to the state by this administration. Some say it is $3.4 billion or more. When will the impact of these investments be felt on the lives of the people?

Don’t forget that this is not government money. It is individuals who appreciate the fact that government has provided adequate security, who are bringing their money here to invest and they are happy that they took that decision.