My actions against Jonathan not personal — GOV
Tambuwal
THE last administration promised to
improve the welfare of religious and traditional rulers in the state. This
includes providing them with vehicles and modernising their palaces, why
haven’t you done much in that regard?
First of all, this government
respects traditional institutions and since we came on board, we have accorded
them the respect they deserve. They play important roles in efforts to sustain
peace and security, and in a larger sense, they promote religious and communal
harmony. Because of their place in our history, we know we cannot do anything
less for them. But you will agree with me that our financial situation since we
came on board has been precarious. Government has cut back on much expenditure,
and has prioritised areas of needs for the whole state.
I am happy that our traditional
rulers have understood clearly what we are faced with and they have not
pressured us to continue with the policy of fixing their palaces when there are
more competing needs in our hospitals, primary healthcare centres, agriculture,
education, youth, women empowerment among others.
Similarly, if you look into the
number and importance of projects we met on ground and the pressure to complete
them, what we did is the best for the state. We have inherited about 30 large
and important projects from the last administration, and we are working hard to
complete all of them and put them to use for the benefit of the citizens. These
are projects that we have to complete as allowing them rot away will lead to
wastage of funds earlier expended to start these projects.
Obligations to workers
Our philosophy has been to take
these gradually, depending on availability of funds, and complete them before
delving into new ones. That policy has served us well in the last two years and
we are happy to put them to use. What you may not be aware is that many of
those projects for traditional rulers were to be executed from the joint
accounts with the local government councils.
But at the moment, many of those
councils cannot carry out any meaningful project outside payment of salaries.
We have severally bailed them out from the state government to enable them meet
their obligations to workers. In such situations, I don’t think they are
buoyant enough to embark on building and repairs of palaces.
You spoke about local government
councils, but there are complaints that many of their workers don’t get their
salaries on time, what is responsible for that?
We have carried out verification
exercise to determine the correct number of workers in each of the 23 local
government councils of Sokoto State. What we met on ground was beyond reason
because the strength of the workforce in our local governments is twice more
than that of Kano that has 44 local government areas. We felt this is not
sustainable.
We are continuing with the biometric
verification to ensure that only genuine workers remain in the schedule of
payment, and they will be paid according to their levels. We must do this to
sanitise the system and ensure ghost workers or absentee workers do not find
sanctuary in the local government system.
How will you review the performance
of the state’s 2016 budget?
I’ve spoken about this during the
presentation of this year’s budget, and in fact when I assented to the budget
law a few days ago. Taking a holistic view of the performance of the budget, I
feel we can do more.
That is why we started this year by
making necessary changes in the personnel that drive the budget process, as can
be seen from what we did at the board of internal revenue. We will continue to
improve the system because time is not on our side. What I’m promising the
people is that the performance of the 2017 budget will be better than that of
2016 in terms of implementation, while even distribution of resources will be
ensured. We will start new projects across the state, with much emphasis placed
on rural areas.
At the meeting of the Northern
Governors Forum recently, you agreed to improve the security situation in your
states, how far have you gone in that regard?
We agreed to share intelligence and
this has been paying off. Take for instance issues of cattle rustling; because
of renewed onslaught by security agencies and the inter-state collaboration
among all the states, this problem has reduced.
We still have few scattered
instances, but we are working to tackle that as well. This cooperation is
extending to cases of kidnapping, armed robbery, civil unrest and the likes. So
the more we collaborate the better for us as states, and the better for our
citizens.
Who or what is responsible for the
current economic situation in Nigeria and secondly, what’s the way out of
recession for the country?
Experts have called on the Federal
Government to inject more money into the system. Personally, I believe creating
job opportunities, especially through the construction industry, and injection
of more money into the economy, remain a sure way out of the current recession
in the country.
Ask any economist about the way out
of recession, and I am sure they will inform you that massive construction
efforts, backed by release of funds, will create jobs whose multiplier effects
will jumpstart the economic barometer. As Speaker of the House of Representatives,
I had reasons to disagree with many of the policies of the last administration
of President Goodluck Jonathan which we felt were inimical to the overall
development and well-being of the people.
Overall development
Many thought we were raising the alarm
because we had personal hatred for him. That is not the case. I had nothing
personal against the former President. The recession we are currently facing
was as a result of the way the economy was mismanaged, largely, by the Jonathan
administration. What is the way out? I’ve said we need to inject money into the
system and create employment opportunities for the people.
And one way to do that is to engage
in massive construction projects. It is part of the reason why we encouraged
the Federal Government to disburse the funds from the debt relief for states to
kick-start activities at regional level.
Similarly, we’ve read how
immediate-past President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, used
this strategy of massive construction works to take America out of economic
challenges. So construction projects alone will create a lot of jobs which will
benefit the economy. We all know that Nigerians are not happy and are running
out of patience, but they should be more patient. It is very easy to destroy
but to rebuild the economy takes time.
You have announced an incentive that
will benefit some 25,000 women across the state, can you shed more light on
this?
What we are doing with the women
groups is part of our overall strategy to assist small and medium scale
entities to boost their operations.
We’ve asked the Sokoto State Small
and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Agency (SOSMEDA) to create a data base
of all small business run by women in the state. As a starting point, we
decided to empower 25,000 of these women who are in the rural areas with a soft
loan of N10,000 each. That amounts to N250 million. We plan to expand it as
time goes on but we are starting with the first set who are getting the N10,000
each very soon.
- Burglar alarms wireless
- Airlines job opportunities
- Barometer
- Centre
- Construction Industry
- Construction Projects
- Construction Works
