The idea is to open access to the riverine communities in the state and ensure that no part of the state is cut off from the phenomenal development spreading across the state.
We are also building a comprehensive vehicle inspection workshop in Awka that will check the road-worthiness of vehicles in Anambra State to minimize the carnage on our roads.
At the same time, I personally made sure that the Smart cars we donated to the police in December last year are equipped with Speed-tracking Devices that would help us enforce sanity on our roads.
PUBLIC UTILITIES:
Our flagship in public utilities at the moment is the Operation Light-up Anambra Project that is fast transforming our towns into cities with dazzling streetlights across the three Senatorial Districts.
We have almost covered the long stretch of road from Amansea in Awka South to Boromeo Junction in Onitsha.
We have also covered substantial kilometres of roads in Nnewi and Awka.
Similarly, we recently commissioned 47 solar-powered boreholes that will serve 27 communities in Aguata and Anambra East Local Government Areas respectively.
We are not relenting on rural electrification as we have expanded the 33KVA line that supplies power to Anambra North and installed 250 transformers in strategic locations across the state.
Meanwhile, Anambra North Senatorial Zone has just been linked to the Agu Awka sub-station and for the first time in five years, the zone now enjoys a regular supply of electricity.
We are working very hard to ensure that Anambra South Senatorial Zone will soon begin to enjoy stable power supply.
Again, in line with our aggressive programmes in Public Utilities we have rolled out a revolutionary Choose-a-Project-Initiative for the 177 communities in Anambra State.
Under this scheme, each community is expected to choose a project worth N20m; that is dear to it. My administration is determined to execute all these projects to the letter.
This initiative is not only a novelty but also truly democratic.
WORKERS WELFARE:
Umu nnem, Anambra is second to none in the welfare of workers in the whole of Nigeria.
We are the only state that increased the salary of workers by 15% in 2015 at a time when many states were looking for bailouts.
We have also shown the humane side of governance with a series of worker-friendly policies and gestures.
For instance, we have since cleared the N1.9bn arrears of salaries owed the State Water Corporation staff as well as the approximately N1bn pension the state owed Local Government retirees inherited by my administration.
Similarly, I granted amnesty to 25 prisoners serving different jail terms in Anambra State to mark Nigeria’s 55th Independence Anniversary last year.
These ex-convicts are currently undergoing training in a school for skill acquisition at Umueri and will be handed N1m each at the end of their training.
Ladies and gentlemen, I won’t end this account without talking about what we have done in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR)
Ndi Anambra, we have set an impressive record in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) with a remarkable increase from the N500m monthly that we inherited from my predecessor to N1.2bn per month at the moment.
Coming at a time when many states in the federation are desperately looking for alternative revenue to stave off the shock of dwindling allocations from the federal government, this is a great feat.
We achieved this through a timely deployment of cutting edge technology and a strategic overhaul of our revenue collection mechanism.
We have made several efforts to boost our IGR; the last one being the IGR Summit we organised in partnership with Fidelity Bank in January this year.
Before that, we had organised a Strategic Retreat for my EXCO members to seek new ways of raising our IGR without increasing taxes.
Right now, our mantra in Awka is “doing more with less,” and our target is to achieve N2.2bn in monthly revenue before the end of this year.
Ndi Anambra, I must now tell you about our new plan to Expand the Frontiers of Excellence in Anambra State.
Having strengthened our core development sectors, we are now well positioned to take Anambra to the next level.
Over the next two months, we will expand our focus to other areas of our Economic Blueprint and consolidate our efforts in a new developmental initiative that I call the Anambra Economic Transformation Program (AET-P).
