Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State says his administration will run a government that is very transparent and listens to the people, explaining that this is the government the people yearned for, and this is the dawn of a new era.
Speaking while receiving members of the Edo State House of Assembly who visited him at the Government House, Benin City, Wednesday, Governor Obaseki said, “I want to assure you that we are going to run a very transparent government and your duty of over sight is very important. I want to assure you that you have in us, a government that you have yearned for, a listening government. We would rather hear from you before we talk to you. Like we said on several occasion, this is the dawn of a new era. The last 8 years of this state witnessed rapid transformation. Before that transformation, we had to first of all recover our state politically and that created the platform for the rapid transformation you have seen in the past 8 years.”
He continued, “So the last 8 years were basically years of foundation laying. We have laid the right foundation for our economy and socio take off and so, the next 4 to 8 years by the special grace of God will- be one in which we will now take Edo to much more higher level than we have seen in the last four decades.
What are the key issues we seek to address? First, we must recover our society. We are likely to lose our society if we do not begin to emphasis those key issues of human development and economic empowerment. We have too many young men and women in our own estimate between half a million to 3 quarter of a million, between the ages of 15 to 30 who have nothing doing. We have to engage them and to engage them, we need to do several things and so, the last two days, you would have noticed that we are trying to understand the issues.”
According to the Governor, “We are going to create jobs. We promised a minimum of 200,000 jobs and to do that, we first have to understand our direction and the challenges we face in terms of unemployment. On Monday, we went to Benin Technical College which was established 40 years ago to champion technical and vocational training for young men and women. The challenges are enormous because what we saw was pitiable and even though we have an obvious task, we are not daunted at all. So, we will, using this institution to quickly understand what we need to do and the investments we need to make. To create the platform, put a lot of our young people through training so that they can be employed in the businesses that we are attracting.
We also understand that no matter how great, no matter how interesting the policies we pronounced are, no matter the bills we have put forward, if we do not have the institutional framework, if we do not have the bureaucracy that can execute, these policies would just be as good or as nice as they have been pronounced.”
Obaseki assured, “Therefore, the key priority for us would be to ensure that we revamp and strengthen our civil service. That informed our visit yesterday to just have a firsthand understanding of how our civil servants work. Members of the house, we have a lot of work to do. In the last 40 years, not much have been done, particularly, in the physical environment in which our civil servants work, but more critically, I even training them and building their skill level.
We understand that we have to continue to invest in infrastructure despite very lean resources but we are very clear and resolute that working with you, and with the kind of support we enjoy from you, we will be able to overcome all these challenges we face.”
Finally, the Governor said his pre-budget team would start discussing the 2017 Budget proposal with the House of Assembly as from next week, “Next week, we will be sending our first executive bill to you. It is critical and when the time is right, we will know publicly. I want to thank you because, though we are separate arms of government, you have decided to, on your own, take time out to come and say, we want to work with you, and to assure you that the very step you take, we will first consult with you. Starting from next week, when we will be sending the team, the pre-budget team to come and meet with the budget committee of the house to seat down and begin to discuss the framework for next year budget.
We believe that if we have this sort of interaction, it will go a long way in facilitating understanding of one another in the process of crafting the bills; it makes it a lot more efficient”, the Governor said.
Also speaking, the Speaker, Edo State House of Assembly, Rt Hon. (Dr.) Justin Okonobo said they were in Government House for a familiarization visit to the Governor and pledged their readiness to work with Governor Obaseki. The Speaker declared that they were ready to formulate laws that would be of benefit to the people of Edo State.