ONE
of the issues discussed at the National Economic Council retreat was the
reduction of the cost of governance. How are you applying that in Delta State?
I
think that when political aides are appointed, they are appointed to do
specific jobs and people don’t understand that. I will give you an example. In
my state, you have what they call the water ways and land security committee.
People may just feel ‘oh it is just for the boys’. But it is not. If you don’t
do that you will just find crises in every part of the state and all kinds of
things are going on even in their presence.
Beyond
that they are able to have an influence on their peers to get away from committing
crime otherwise most of the southern states where you have trouble you will
find out that if you do not use some of them to be part of the process to
achieve peace and gather intelligence, you will just be lost because within the
creeks, all kinds of things go on and the government agencies themselves won’t
be able to get such information with the kind of information that comes out.
But I
do know that some of them may have their excesses but I know that they play a
lot of role especially with issues concerning vandalism, bunkering and issues
concerning even kidnapping. They play a lot of roles. Sometimes the situation
demands they appoint these aides because they actually have roles to play but
in the totality of it, the amount that you use to pay in terms of salaries and
allowance for these aides doesn’t actually add up a lot to the cost of
governance. The current situation is that in many states, truly, you find a
situation where you have what I call an over bloated work force. That is
because in the past years, we ran clearly an oil economy.
Over
bloated work force
The
question is: do we actually need all of them? Even if we don’t need all of
them, can you actually retrench people at this moment? It is not political.
It is
not the best at the moment to consider. If you put all this together, I believe
that the various governments will employ the number of aides that will actually
be needed for the course of the duty. Some directly and some are actually
needed indirectly to play other roles that are beyond the administration.
So,
in figures can we know how you reduced the cost of governance in the state?
Well,
we are still in the process of reducing the cost of governance; it is ongoing.
When talking about the cost of governance generally, we are looking at the
overhead cost, salaries and remuneration to staff. These two put together is
what we call recurrent expenditure. What we have tried to do is to reduce to a
reasonable level the cost of running the ministries.
That
has come down by about 50 per cent; I may not be able to give you the exact
figures now. However, we have been able to get top civil servants to buy into
the current situation, which is that it is better for us to have a reduced cost
than to have irregularities in the releases of funds. You may never get the
funds if you stick to the old figures I guess that the MDAs are operating under
very tight conditions, but they have been able to run their ministries
effectively.
We
have also gone ahead to discuss with security operatives to rework the funding
that is necessary for the processes of securing the peace of the state and that
is still ongoing. There are seven places government deployed them in the past
and those places are no longer in crisis, so we have to go down on those levels
of expenditure for which I have their cooperation.
Largely,
there had been a lot of spending in the past about what they called non-regular
expenditure.
It
involved all manner of money spent on the general running of governance,
requiring non regular releases; not monthly releases, but releases that are
normally given to ministries to undertake one thing or the other, either
foreign trips and various forms of workshops. We had to streamline all these
because you need to be sure of what you are doing.
No
foreign trip for now
Now,
we are not allowing any foreign trip except it is going to be necessary. Even
on my part as the governor, I have only had to move out once because I had to
go and address the UN on the African Industrialization Bill.
Recurrent
expenditure
I had
that window of opportunity, which is something that you get occasionally and it
is the only foreign trip by me since I came into government.
We
are also trying to streamline so many things and as I said, it is ongoing. We
have been able to do a lot of cost reduction. It may not have come down too
much because within our recurrent expenditure, we also bring in the issue of
consolidated revenue funds.
Anyway,
we have spent quite a huge sum of money in servicing the debts that we met and
even then, we have also put processes in place to also streamline and
restructure those debts to certain level that we can say the servicing is
manageable. We are spending about N2.7 billion monthly to service debts now as
against between N4.7billion to N5.2billion spent on servicing debts on a
monthly basis when we came in.
About
10 months in the saddle, what do you have to show Deltans and where exactly are
you leading the state?
In
the first instance, at the state level, we have stabilized governance. The
stability in governance is that we have been able to manage the finances. At
least up to February, we have been able to pay salaries and that in itself is
all-important.
We
have also had to talk with the staff; I had a meeting with the Permanent
Secretaries and all Directors on my assumption to ensure that they understand
where we are now. The reason is that if you do not give them the opportunity to
buy in, they will live in the past as if the state is buoyant.
You
know people have this mentality that ‘Delta State is an oil rich state,’
therefore, everybody wants to live big and large. Therefore, we essentially
made them to understand that we are in austerity time and we expect that
everybody should run government the way government should be and not to be
extravagant in what they do. I guess that they have essentially bought into
that and we now have stability in government and that is quite important. Then
we have also kept faith with our programme but we would have loved to expand
beyond what we are doing now.
Educational
revolution: Going outside that, we also realized that there is a need to re-jig
our educational curriculum. We held an impressive Education Summit, which was
very widely attended; a two-day summit where we charted a direction for
ourselves. Essentially, we agreed that we need to have a concentration on
Technical Education where our children are able to acquire skills.
Unfortunately, we had abandoned most of our technical schools; we did not pay
special attention to them.
Comprehensive
rehabilitation
In
this short while, we have been able to have a comprehensive rehabilitation and
equipping of three of them; in Agbor, at Ofagbe and the one in Sapele. We tried
to build up hostels so that it will be better than what we had in the past with
workshops, improving on the level of the teaching staff and providing
equipment. We are also trying to create linkages with other persons who can
actually come in because it is not just a question of the theory, we need
people to acquire genuine skills that will keep them going in life; that we are
doing.
The
other three Technical schools, this year, we are trying to put them into proper
shape, these include the one at Iselle-Uku, Ozagogo and the one at Ogor,
Ughelli North and these are areas we are looking into while trying to create
proper linkage between them and our Polytechnics.
Health
Insurance policy: In the health sector, we have also the Delta Contributory
Health Commission Law. It is actually going to be a partnership between the
citizenry and the government. World over, we are talking about universal health
coverage. That has not been the case in Nigeria, the National Health Insurance
Scheme since 2004 has only managed to capture federal workers and most states
have not bought in.
Health
insurance cover federal workers and few organizations but here in Delta, we
have decided to extend it beyond workers; we are bringing in the informal
sector, we are bringing in the organized private sector, and the law actually
makes it compulsory for any organized private sector to insure its workers.
We
have already appointed the Chairman and the Director General of the Commission;
we are working with the National Health Insurance Scheme. Among the informal
workers, what we do is to encourage them to participate in the health insurance
scheme.
The
money is not going to be burdensome on the families because rather than
somebody getting sick at a time you may not have money and the person dies or
you going to the moneylender, with the little premium that you pay, you will
actually find out that you can get good healthcare services in any of our
hospitals.
When
did it dawn on you that you could be the governor of Delta State?
Well,
I cannot say because I already had the ambition before the Ogwashi-Uku
primaries. In June 2006, the ambition came into me; just about six months to
that primaries and I tried to make many consultations. By October, I did decide
to run for the elections, we thank God for whatever happened, but I did well, I
thank God, I came out a strong second and being a party man, I actually
supported the party, I supported the immediate past governor and I also became
the director- general of his campaign.
Accountability
and justice
We
ran our effective campaign and at the end of it, I became Secretary to the
State Government. Having participated and done well and because I have worked
in Delta State, I believe I have a clear understanding of what Delta State
should be and how we should relate to our people. With a very strong desire, we
realized that we need to unite our people in Delta State and that we must work
strongly to create trust between government and the people.
This
kept on resonating in my mind and right from that day, even when I lost, I
believe that after the governor’s eight years, I was also going to make an
attempt. Because for us to create unity, we need equity, you must understand
the sensitivities of the people, you need a reasonable level of accountability,
and you must be somebody that is able to build relationship, rather than play
the politics of power.
It is
a very common thing to play the politics of power, when in power, you want to
do things in a manner that people fear you, but I believe in uniting people.
You will find that where we are today, most of them that contested with me in
the primaries are in my government and we are working strongly, even in key
positions.
Warm
representation for Delta State
People
will advise you oh, that is not the best to do, but I do not believe in that, I
believe in what you can offer. That is why if you watch quickly now, I have a
Commissioner for Finance, he was in the contest, my Senior Policy Adviser was
in the contest. These things are quite important and they hold key positions,
because I believe that they have things to offer, that is why they were in the
race and, therefore, we can work together to deliver with everybody bringing
his idea to bear.
So,
right from 2006, I had a focus. Of course, I knew there was going to be a break
for eight years because I needed to support the governor, who was on seat, and
I kept faith with it. By God’s grace, I went to the Senate and throughout the
time I was in the Senate, my focus was strongly on Delta. I thank God I had a
warm representation for Delta State in the Senate; I am sure that you can
attest that I was not a bench warmer in the Senate.
I was
a strong voice for Delta in the Senate and I thank God that the people
appreciated it and when it came to the issue of election in Delta, to the glory
of God, many people did not think I will survive it, but to God be the glory, I
am Governor today.
Until
date, it is still a mystery how Senator Ifeanyichukwu Okowa, aka, Ekwueme,
broke the jinx of Delta Northerner emerging Governor of Delta State, can we
know how you and others did it?
I
think it is essentially God. God guided us aright and from the beginning I did
not preach Delta North, thank God my SSG and Chief of Staff were all there with
me in the field. Right from day one in 2006, I have preached that there was the
need for us to have someone, who has a good understanding of the state and that
our government will run based on equity, accountability and justice.
Because
if I did go in the line of Delta North, I would have gotten it wrong, I will
turn out to be a sectional governor. I ran for the Senate and became a Senator
for Delta North.
Yes,
I represented the people well, though I was a voice for Delta, but in running
for governorship, you must have a clear vision and it must be about Delta State
and not about Delta North. So I think the people understood the message that I
was preaching the unity of Delta and, therefore, the progress of Delta, rather
than try processes that will lead me to become an ethnic warlord, an ethnic
governor, I did not want it to be so. They understood that and I think God
actually blessed that.
Contract
processes
However,
all through my time in government, from 1999 until date, I have seen myself as
a Deltan and I keep friends across. I will start from when I was in Water
Resources and Agriculture as commissioner; I could sit down and relate with
people across the state and the dividends of democracy that came through my
office to people.
Not
necessarily money, but through contract processes, people who you really knew
were competent. I did not care whether you are from Delta North, Central, Ijaw,
Isoko, Itsekiri. I related with everybody equally and when I was doing that, I
did it just because I had that feeling.
I
never thought then and it never crossed my mind that I could ever become
governor. We were still quite young, but I found out at last, when we were
doing our campaign that it helped us a lot, because there were many places I
went to consult with our leaders, they would remind me about what I did for
them in 1999, 2001, off course, I had forgotten. Even in the remote places,
they put in remembrance of some of these things that I did and I said thank God
I did well because if I had also done wrong to them, they would also have
recounted them during the visits.
So we
thank God, its God’s grace, the powers were strong, but once He decides, no man
can fault Him.
Vanguard
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