Imo government okays 200 workers for traffic management agency

Renames Eastern Palm varsity after Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe

The Imo State Government has approved a traffic management agency with the engagement of initial 200 employees.

Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Declan Emelumba, disclosed this at the Government House, Owerri, at the weekend, after the weekly State Executive Council (SEC) meeting.

Lamenting the worsening traffic situation in Owerri, the state capital, he said the government was perfecting arrangements to address the challenge.

Emelumba explained that the council presided over by Governor Hope Uzodimma approved that some employees of the Imo Civil Guard be co-opted through conversion and recruitment into the agency.

He added that operations of the agency would include Orlu and Okigwe zones in line with the memo to the council on how to ease the traffic situation in Owerri and other zones, emanating from the Commissioner for Transport, Rex Anunobi, aimed at resolving the challenge.

Emelumba, who was accompanied by the Commissioner for Lands, Survey and Physical Planning, Enyinnaya Onuegbu, and Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Governor, Oguwike Nwachuku, said: “The Imo State Traffic Management Agency will soon takeoff and unlike in the past when its operation was limited to Owerri, it will now cover Owerri, Okigwe and Orlu zones.”

He disclosed that the council noted full recovery of the former Eastern Palm University (EPU), hinting that the institution had been renamed Kingsley Ozurumba Mbadiwe University, stressing that the institution was no longer associated with any village or community.

Former Governor Rochas Okorocha had said his Foundation had 90 per cent ownership of the institution built during his tenure, while the state government had 10 per cent, but the Prof. Jude Njoku panel set up during former Governor Emeka Ihedioha’s administration reported that the state government wholly owned the university.

On-road construction, Emelumba, disclosed that building of quality roads would continue in the state, adding that the Commissioner for Works, Ralph Nwosu, had informed that the contractors had given their assurances to that effect, especially on the Naze- Nekede-Ihiagwa-Obinze Road.

He, however, pointed out that the council frowned on the failure of some institutions and establishments to pay ground rents to the state government, warning that government would take the issue seriously.