Holds Town Hall Meeting At Oghara, Sapele.
DELTA State Governor, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa has said the
multi-billion naira Independent Power Plant (IPP) project in Oghara will
gulp much more money before it can come on stream.
The Governor
who had a town hall meeting with the people of Ethiope West and Sapele
local government areas in Oghara and Sapele respectively, stated that
adequate power supply was required to boost the socio-economic life of
the people.
Specifically, at Oghara where the former Governor of
the state, Chief James Ibori led cream of politicians to attend the
meeting, Governor Okowa disclosed that with the economic realities of
the country, it would be difficult for the state to solely sponsor the
IPP project.
"We have to study the project, if I tell you that it
will be functional during my administration, I will be telling you
lies, a lot have been done, but, we have done the calculation but, it is
obvious that we cannot execute the project as a state for now because,
the project will gulp over N200 billion." he said.
Continuing, he
said, "there are two options, either we enter into private partnership
with the private sector or to outrightly, sell the IPP to the private
sector so that it can make the project functional, so as to create jobs
for our people and other benefits derivable."
The Governor also,
used the occasion to clarify issues concerning funding in the state,
asserting that with the country, officially in recession, revenue to the
Federal Government and other tiers of government was affected.
"We will continue to do the best we can even with the challenging times
and we will continue to remain focused," the Governor said.
At
Sapele, Governor Okowa who was accompanied to all the events by his
Deputy, Barr. Kingsley Otuaro and other top government functionaries
commended Deltans for their peaceful ways of resolving issues, observing
that the protest by the people of Sapele against epileptic power supply
was peaceful.
While listing projects executed by his
administration in the area which included construction of roads,
schools, markets, and others, the Governor expressed joy that since his
coming on board two years ago, the Songhai Delta has becoming functional
as training ground for the training of youths in different fields of
life, especially agriculture.
"I can rightfully claim that i am
from Okpe and Saoele local government, I want to thank you for coming
out in your large numbers to attend this town hall meeting which will
provide the opportunity to tell you what we are doing and the prospect
we have for the future and also, listen to you to enable us add your
needs in our budget.
"We are encouraging participatory democracy
which I think we should have," he said, adding, "I was happy with what I
saw at the Songhai Training centre; in the past two years, that centre
has been very active and yesterday, I saw a new system of farming, not
new to the world but, new to us.
"The drip irrigation which is
the first in our state; it will help to grow tomatoes, cucumbers and
other vegetables and with the drip irrigation system, tomatoes will be
grown at least three cycles in one year."
"So many of our youths
have been engaged already in our empowerment programmes and we are happy
that our youths are also acquiring new skills through the revamped
technical colleges in the state," he reiterated.
The Governor assured that the Sapele market and other project's would come on stream in the cause of the year...
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