Gov. Alex Otti of Abia, has said that Local Government (LG) funds cannot be hijacked under his watch.
Otti said this on Friday during the monthly media parley at Government House, Umuahia.
The governor said that he was intentional about ensuring that funds meant for the Local Governments would be utilised to facilitate balanced socioeconomic growth in Abia.
He said: “Local Government funds cannot be hijacked under my watch and if you see what is happening in the Local Governments, you will know that the funds are working.
“So anybody who says funds have been hijacked needs to tell us who hijacked the funds and we can now begin to pursue the hijackers, but to the best of my knowledge, it is impossible to hijack funds under my watch.”
Otti also said that the State Government had developed a robust strategy to reposition education in Abia.
“We have looked at the curricula, teaching staff, the infrastructures and we are in the process of enumerating the civil servants we can redeploy to the schools,” he added.
Otti said that the government was making concerted efforts to make the teaching profession very attractive.
He also said that the government had commenced its retrofitting programme in 171 primary schools and 54 secondary schools to upgrade the selected schools to be of high quality standard.
“We have what we call the minimum standard, if you get into a primary school that we have touched you will understand.
“There are facilities that must be there in the schools like libraries, laboratories, students hostels, and principals’ quarters among others,” Otti said.
He further said that his administration has been able to cut down the cost of governance by ensuring that only absolutely necessary expenditures were undertaken by the government.
Otti said: “it’s tough but we have to do it, we have been managing our expenditures in such a way that we are able to live within our means as much as possible.”
According to him, as at the time his predecessor took over, the state was owing N34.5 million and as at the time he took over, the debts had reached over N192.2 million.
He expressed dismay over the fact that these funds could not be accounted for.
Otti said that some of the debts had already been paid off, because they were commercial bank over drafts at very high interest rates.
He said that since he became governor, he had always ensured that security vote was judiciously utilised in enhancing security in Abia.
Otti added that security remains top priority in the state government’s agenda because of its role in development.
We’ve cleared all pension arrears in Abia – Gov. Otti
Gov. Alex Otti of Abia, on Friday said the State Government had paid all the pension arrears of retirees in the state.
Otti, who disclosed this during the monthly media parley in Umuahia, said that all the pensions and arrears of about 12,500 retirees were cleared as at last Thursday.
He said that over N9 billion out of the N10 billion outlay had so far been expended for the exercise.
The governor recalled that his administration had, after assuming office on May 29, 2023, promised to pay off all the pension arrears by the end of that year.
According to him, unfortunately, by the end of the year, we were still saddled with a very difficult verification exercise that ended just a few weeks ago.
The governor promised that, moving forward, pensioners would receive 100 per cent of their entitlements on or before 28th of every month.
“As we are paying 100 per cent of salaries we will also pay 100 per cent of pensions.
“Never again shall we have a backlog of pensions and arrears to be paid,” Otti vowed.
The governor said that his administration would continue to place high premium on the healthcare delivery system in the state.
He said that the government, in collaboration with a group, had engaged over 80 medical doctors who would provide free medical services in the state.
Otti said that the medical personnel who had already started arriving in the state, would carry out surgeries and other forms of treatments in the next couple of days.
The governor assured that the government had provided logistics, especially for residents coming from outside the state capital, Umuahia.
He urged the people to take advantage of the free exercise and have their heath checked.
Otti said that his administration would continue with its programme of retrofitting the 948 primary health care centres in the state.
The governor also spoke on a variety of issues concerning the development of the state, while responding to questions from journalists.