By Chioma Onuegbu
UYO—AKWA-IBOM State Government has commended the Federal Government for introducing the Price Checker and e-Procurement initiatives aimed at eliminating fraud, and minimising cost of governance especially overhead expenditure.

Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Linus Nkan gave the commendation Monday in Uyo, while declaring open a two-day sensitisation workshop on Price Checker and e-Procurement organised by the Federal Ministry of Finance Efficiency Unit in collaboration with Bureau of Public Procurement for the South-South zone.

Nkan said: “When it comes to government transactions, nobody cares. They take government business and transaction as no man’s business, but in the private sector, people  are made to handle their transactions with all amount of efficiency and transparency.

“And why we are where we are today is because of the way we have been handling government business and transaction. The current administration especially at the centre spends so much time trying to correct the ills of the past.

“It is the way that we handle government business that had made this government instead of working forward, it is actually working backwards. And that is what should be done first. The past needs to be corrected so as to prepare and get the nation ready to start working for the future.”

Nkan expressed the hope that at the end of programme, the participants drawn the six states of the South South would be equipped with new ways of handling government business and transaction in order to pave way for transparency, accountability and good reporting of government business and transaction.