Okorocha appeals to workers, insists no bailout received yet
Okorocha
• Imo to export leather works • Urges cultivation of non-seasonal crops
IMO State workers should be more patient over their salary arrears as the state was yet to receive the promised bailout fund, Governor Rochas Okorocha has appealed.
Speaking on Wednesday in Owerri on arrival from his two-week trip to Singapore, the governor also appealed to them to be diligent in their work and expect their pay as soon as he receives it.
In another front, farmers across the state have been advised to cultivate food crops that can grow irrespective of the season, while also establishing agro-based industries for revenue.
According to the Acting Programmes Manager of the state’s Agricultural Development Programme (ADP), Emmanuel Jonathan, in these days of diversification of sources of income and revenue, farmers should find suitable ways of embracing agro-based productions and sales for self-sufficiency.
He urged farmers to embrace real business and produce such crops as garden eggs and tomato, among others, stressing that residents do not need any food coming from outside the state.
State targets export of leather works
Meanwhile, plans have advanced to begin the production and export of shoes, bags and other leather works to other states and countries. Okorocha disclosed that the Imo Leather Production Industrial Cluster at Naze would be the base for local and foreign investors in the scheme, which he said would create a huge revenue-base for the state.
Inspecting some projects, including the Imo Concorde Hotel fly-over under construction on Amakoihia-Orji Road, among others, Okorocha said his administration has put necessary measures in place to realise the projects that would create jobs.
Meanwhile, he said his foreign trip in search of investors was rewarding. Of the construction work, he noted: “This will be the first fly-over in Imo State.
“The foundation of this was laid by my predecessor, but we had to redesign, expand and make a roundabout within it; we believe it will decongest traffic and make economic activities to thrive here.”
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1 Comments
Amazing! Your excellency, you are number one among the State employees, right? Your Commissioners followed in that cadence; the heads of Departments, the Permanent Secretaries and the last employees at the rung of the ladder? If I were you, I will not be making public statements about the so called bailout money. The health of any outfit begins with how decently it treats its working men and women. To think that your State employees are owed some salary in arrears is unspeakable and out-rightly absurd. Absurd in the sense that the wages and salaries are the priority of any organization that prides itself in continuity more so when the succeeding budgets specifically accommodated such items. Mr. Governor, are you telling us that you and your top echelon employees of the Imo State Government have not collected you salaries this while? You are aware of what is transpiring in the center. You know that the money being contemplated to fund the pledge from PMB cannot leave the Treasury until the NASS says something about it through its functional process. So find other methods of placating the helpless workers until the funds are available. Making public statements about the issue is tantamount to an indictment of failure to pay it in the first place having been fully itemized in the budgets.
We will review and take appropriate action.