Ayade addressing a public audience yesterday
Joseph Odok|20 October 2016
It is not for an intent to insult the governor that I mean that his hands are too short to save CRS, hands here is rather used figuratively. The hundred days of Prof Ayade Benedict shows a man without a direction. A man with so many promises yet with no fulfilment of any nor a clear blueprint that promises a ray of hope in his first 100 days in office. Worse of it is the fact that he maintains a financially reckless economy despite the reality of increased debt burden and myriads of other problems.
The first show of our governors financial recklessness is his long convoy, with a litany of errand boys wasting daily in furtherance of his show man ship. The drivers and errand boys, by this I mean errand boys of his flamboyance inclusive of his media team are paid from the lean resources of the state, yet these wasted youths adds nothing to the state's economy. Cross river state must not become an elongation of the showcasing of the governor
Secondly while other governors like Delta state governor are working towards reducing the number of aides and commissions, our governor is in a drive to increase his number of aides and creates more commissions as a conduit pipe for draining our dilapidating state economy. Most of these aides will paid salaries, allowances and overheads from our dwindling state funds
Thirdly the drive of Ayade to go borrowing to finance his signature projects rather than look inward to create wealth from our immense human, natural resources puts the state in a great financial danger. The problem of the state does not lie in execution of projects but in thinking out projects that are marketable with a prospect of generating a surplus value that can add to our economy. Today tinapa, Obudu cattle ranch, international conference centre etc stands as great investments with no concomitant multiplier effect on the lives of cross riverians. Rather than focus on agriculture with particular attention paid to improving production in crops like cocoa, banana, plantain, rice, maize, with company and factories to process the raw materials to finished goods; our governor seems to look at projects that require us borrowing thus exposing us to dangers of economic melt down. How many years of slavery will cross riverians be exposed to before they can pay the loans and their corresponding profits?
In the same vein our governor plans to expand the work force with no concomitant increase in the states capital base. It would have been more rewarding if our governor had focused on ways of increasing an entrepreneurial work force base. This can be made possible by provision of micro credit schemes to farmers and small scale farmers. Building an entrepreneurial work force pays much more than an unproductive civil service initiative. The Greek example is a historical lesson to caution the excesses of the governor especially in maintaining an expensive work face in situations that issues of unpaid salaries, pension and gratuity is a recurrent decimal
The economic realities in the state betrays the the good intentions of our governor. The reality of unpaid accruals of backlogs of pensioners, Crutech staff, local government staff betrays the extravagance of the governor. More so, the state of our roads, schools and debt burden tells the story that the hands of our governor are too short to save cross river state.
Joseph Odok
Is a Change Agent
