Whereas the immediate past governor of Rivers State paid more attention to roads during his eight years reign, the current governor, Sim Fubara says his attention will be more on agriculture, education and health.
The governor said this when members of the House of Representatives committee on public accounts visited him. He said he would spend more money on the three sectors and would remain accountable to the people.
The governor recalled that when he was appointed the Accountant General in 2020, the public accounting reporting position of the State changed for the best because he understood the numbers and how to clearly present the details.
He said the culture of prudence and transparency has been maintained as he assumed governorship of the State despite the challenges that had confronted his Administration.
“As an organised Government, when we came on board, we met a very big challenge. For 11 years, there was no promotion in this State Civil Service. So, imagine a Government that inherited about 52,000 civil servants, and you want to pay them for years that they had been denied their dues.
“What we were paying before I came in was an average of N5.3billion. Let us even do 25 percent of it: it can’t be anything less than 8 point something billion that we are doing now. That was what we started paying.
“How much is our allocation? So, we needed to think outside the box. That was where we now did a rejig of our Internally Generated Revenue. And I can tell you today that all the projects we are doing, we don’t borrow,” he said.
According to him, “we are very transparent. We are not hiding anything. That is why I boldly would say it. The least we do this period is N26billion – N27billion. The highest they were doing before was N12billion – N13billion.
“We will also do a few roads but the most important things are these three sectors. That is the only way we can save ourselves from this present situation of hardship. Save ourselves from the issues of societal ill: you call it cultism and others.
“Education is the only instrument we can use to fight social vices. And we need quality healthcare. You need to be alive to even drive a good car on the roads. You can imagine how much we spend on medical tourism.
“Then, agriculture: we have to ensure food security and sufficiency. We have to feed ourselves to tame hunger. So, those are the targets of this Government.
“We have promised our people that our Government will be for the people. We care for the people. The people are more important to us. When you have the people, you have everything.
“It doesn’t matter the high and mighty, the number of policemen that you carry around. The people are most important. Because the people are the ones who, in their sub-units, control people who at the end, make the decisions when the time comes.
“It is not the policemen. It is not the army. It is not the escorts. It is the people. So, our concern is how to meet the needs if the people,” the Governor added.
In his address, Chairman of the Committee, Bamidele Salam, said they were in the State for the first retreat of the committee.
Salam pointed out that they chose the State because it is peaceful, and has a Governor who understands what governance truly means and has never been distracted by the political crisis confronting his administration.
