Ill Reform Agriculture to Create Jobs for Youths - Okowa INTERVIEW Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Delta State on New Year eve granted exclusive audience to the Independent Newspapers Limited (INL) team of Charles Okogene (Editor, Saturday Independent), Kingsley Ighomwenghian (Deputy Editor, Daily Independent), Felix IgbekoyiCorrespondent) Rose Okafor (Advert Executive) and Goddy Umukoro(photojournalist) in his Asaba residence where he unfolded his agenda for the people of Delta State. What are those things you are promising Deltans when the electioneering campaign kicks off officially in a few days time? Well, first is to meet with the party and address issues concerning our manifesto and what we want to do for ***Deltans***. In the first instance, a lot is been done at the moment in terms of infrastructure development. If you go round our schools you will see things going on; go round our hospitals, a lot is going on there too but there is really a teething problem and that is what we want to address. There is a major challenge in terms of unemployment and therefore, any serious minded government must be thinking of how to create employment for the youth; and if we are going to create employment for the youth, I think that we need to be looking in some basic directions. We have to look at agricultural reforms, we have to look into how we can industrialise the state and it is difficult to industralise the state now if you are not able to ensure that there is peace because a peaceful environment will enable industries to thrive. Then, as an intervention, we must be looking into how we can assist the people in equipping approach, how we can raise their standard of living, raise their income through a micro-credit system and make that system work effectively and efficiently. So these are some basic issues we need to look into. Yes, I do know that if you cast your mind back to the 1980s when we had the agricultural development programme our farmers were happy because they had improved yields; even a lot of young people went into fish farming, some into poultry farming. When we talk of farming some people just think that you are talking of the cash crops, it goes beyond that. While we think that we need to help a set of farmers that are into food crop farming to develop with improved seedlings, to develop with mechanisation and that involves cooperative farming in which case when people are able to come within a communal space of land we are able to help them mechanise their farms so that they will not depend solely on hoe and cutlasses. We also believe that we need to begin to develop aqua-culture because there is a lot of gap in fish supply in this country. We need to develop the poultries, there are other forms of farming - the piggeries and the rest are also areas where people can actually thrive. So how do we get these things to work? We need to get the Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) to become functional and therefore, we must restructure it and in that restructuring we must ensure that we have an effective agricultural extension service system which was fully in existence in the 1980s but has collapsed completely now. It is a programme were you have persons with technical knowledge go into the farms to help farmers on how to improve on various aspects of farming and also link them up into marketing, proper storage facilities that will not incur lots of losses for them; then we need to progress into agro processing; so it is a whole lot of chain that we are going to look into. You talked about industrialisation; what are your strategises? We need to talk about our industries. How can we get our industries to thrive again? How can we attract new industries to come in? There are two major challenges when it comes to industrialisation - high cost of funds and poor power supply. And the third one is how can we get a peaceful environment to run these industries? I believe that because we have high cost of funds and poor power supply that increases the cost of production and therefore, people will not want to establish industries because they cannot compete with the external world; they cannot even compete with imported products because they are coming in with cheap prices so if we are able to develop industrial areas in which we have power source that is steady and which can be dedicated to the industrial estate/layout and you provide other appropriate infrastructure that can be shared, it will reduce the cost of production. Then again, because the industries are likely to come in with mapped out infrastructure in the place within a defined space, it is also possible to have a proper link in which in partnership with the state government, we will be able to link them up with the banks and ensure that with some level of partnership we are able to reduce the cost of fund to a large extent and then. I believe that once we are able to provide the space with the needed infrastructure like power definitely, it will attract entrepreneurs. And we must direct more of these to agro processing industries because they are the ones that will created the badly needed employment. What plans do you have for the cottage industries that small scale outfits that depend on micro-credit for financing? Something is going on in Delta State at the moment but I think we can deepen it. We will work out the modalities because there will be a transition committee that will handle all that. I know that they have created an agency at the moment but we are going to look at that and see how best it works because in making micro credit effective, you must link it properly with the ministry of commerce. You cannot take it away from the ministry of commerce and industry. So there must be a proper linkage so we are going to work out all that; we are going to look at how effectively we can manage it and ensure that we have the best of result coming in from there. On the health sector Health is wealth, they say. And on that premise we are also going to pay serious attention to the health sector which is the key thing. Already we are doing well as a state when it comes to the issue of healthcare because the current government is doing free maternal healthcare and to some extent, free under five healthcare but that is only within the secondary healthcare sector. Majority of our people are actually attended to at the primary healthcare sector so we need to look at that challenge. How do we handle it because it is only a limited percentage of the populace, probably not more that 20 to 25 percent that attend secondary healthcare sector the one that is closest to the people is the primary healthcare sector and so I believe that the way to go is to ensure that we start a healthcare policy for our people. We may not within one, two years be able to engage all *****Deltans*** in the healthcare policy, I am talking of the health insurance policy, but we will start off in such a way that within a short while we will be able to grow even as Ghana has grown; in todays Ghana over 60 percent of the populace have healthcare policy insurance because they followed a process consistently and that is what Nigeria is trying to do under President Goodluck Jonathan but I think we are still very far from where we should be because the federal government is doing something but most of the states have not embraced it. I believe that Delta State will be one of the first states to key into it. For those in the formal and informal sectors I believe that, that is the right way to go and that people should not pay for health services out of their pocket anymore; we will encourage our people to pay some premium and government will be supportive of those premiums as we will pay some percentage of those premiums on behalf of the people. These things will be worked out in details in a short while. I am already talking with the Nigerian Health Insurance Scheme in this light because it is the best way to go and to that extent we will not be running just a free maternal and under five healthcare because when you have a health insurance policy that covers you to a particular age it means everybody is brought on board and we have a more efficient and effective healthcare system beyond the fact that you also create a pool of funds that will enable the healthcare sector to develop. Education is very critical in all that you are promising to do, and unfortunately standard of education is on a free fall in Nigeria and Delta is not an exception. What plans do you have for the sector? We will continue to upgrade the infrastructures and retrain the personnel both academic and non academic ones. I also believe that we need to restructure and bring technical education to the fore. People should be able to learn skills and learning skills does not mean that you have to go for training for one month or two weeks and jump out. That is not it. At technical schools we need to refocus our youths and back them back to teaching skills beyond acquiring secondary education. I am very much interested in that because a lot of countries are going in that direction. We will also set up a team to study the curriculum of our polytechnics because I believe that polytechnics should be more proactive and efficient to produce persons who are able to stand on their own when they leave school not when you have 100 persons coming out of school and all of them are looking for white colar jobs. I dont think that is the direction that polytechnics should go. I know that as of today, we have about four polytechnics with school of physical education and we need to be able to direct them to areas of specialisation because that is what polytechnics are made for but it is not exactly so at the moment and we need to go back and rework it in such a manner that you are able to go to a particular polytechnic and know what knowledge you are acquiring. If you are a graduate of a particular polytechnic, people will know that you are sound enough to be able to handle some aspects of technical job. That was the initial intention of founding fathers of the polytechnics and we will go back to that vision. How do you intend to tackle the issue of environment vis a vis urban renewal especially the flooding that occurs in the state capital and the illegal structures in Warri? I believe too that we need to engage ourselves in urban renewal and improvement of the environment. We have mapped out programmmes for all that but at this stage the more important thing is how do we create jobs? And in going into that we must talk about housing and talking about housing is how we are able to partner with the private sector to utilise the opportunities available from the mortgage banks to see how we can build more houses for our people; first to reduce the gap in terms of housing supply and again, in the cause of building you will discover that you are creating a lot of jobs. Those are areas we need to look into in our desire to create jobs for our youths. In all of these, finance is a key issue especially now that the price of crude oil, which our budget depends on as of now, is presently at $57 per barrel and that means you will have less money to spend. Are you factoring this into you programme? Actually price of crude oil is an issue which is quite a challenge for this country. There is no doubt about that. It is a major challenge that the price has fallen below the budget benchmark and while it is a big problem is because the current revenue, to a large extent, remains constant. You must pay salaries. Yes, you can cut down on overhead cost but much of the revenue is spent on salary payment and therefore is a challenge for all the states and challenge for this federation. However, what it also means is that we must begin to find ways of improving on our internally generated revenue (IGR) and other sources of revenue. I believe that in this state, we can generate much more money than we are generating at the moment, until you fall into this kind of challenge, you may not bring out your best in terms of IGR generation; though, many of the populace are very poor and there is a limit to which they can be taxed. I also believe that there are a lot of persons who pay taxes far below what they should pay and many persons dont even pay at all. It is for us to look at the gaps, look at the loopholes and block them. I am still optimistic that the oil prices will not remain as it is right now. It will spring up again but it is a lesson for Nigeria that we actually need to diversify our economy. We cannot continue to depend and trust on oil price in the international market. It has made us lazy because since we started producing oil at the level we have gone, what you see now is that people just wait for the end of the month to go to Abuja with their caps asking for money and I think we need to have a rethink because this is not the first time. Another challenge is the issue of uncompleted projects littering the state. Where are you going to start from if elected? Uncompleted projects littering the state? Well, when I have an inventory about those projects and I have a situation report which normally will be in the handover notes I will know what to do; luckily we are finishing the elections early so I am sure that we will be able to have a 60-day transition committee put in place to understudy all of that. By then we will get a situation report on those projects if any; the level of funding, commitment and so on. With the information we will be able to restrategise and come up with timeline for each project. Definitely, we will need to prioritise some of the projects and know which to fund quickly to bring to completion. We will be looking at their economic advantage or importance. But as the same PDP government, the onus is on us to complete all ongoing projects because government is a continuum. Those that are critical will be funded quickly and we will look at how to finance the rest. They are projects that have been started and it is our duty to complete them. Any abandoned project is a disservice to the people and I am not aware that there is a project that will not be useful to the people so it is a question of having our priorities right. Lets return to the process that led to your emergence as PDP standard bearer against all odds. How did you pull it through? My victory is the Lords doing. That is much I can say about that for now. How do you hope to handle the controversy that your emergence is brewing? What is happening is not unusual after an election. We are Deltans and we have our ways of sorting things out. And we are doing that already. I crave your indulgence for us not to talk much about that.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 18:07:51 +0000
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