He noted that the Isieketa-Obikabia road was last week completed, adding that other ongoing road projects including Ossah, Port Harcourt road Aba, Umuahia -Uzuakoli-Isukwuato-Ohafia road, the Nunya-Isukwuato road, Arochukwu-Ndi-Okereke -Ozu Abam road among other road projects were progressing.
Okey Kanu said the government had done a lot in the past 11 months including offsetting the pension arrears and restoring full payment of pensions to pensioners in the state.
The Abia Information boss hinted that the state government was interested in the improvement of workers’ welfare in the state and was currently monitoring conversations with the federal government on the issue of salary increments.
He assured that the state government would proclaim at the appropriate time in line with what it could afford.
“I want to inform us that it’s eleven months ago that this government took over the reigns of power in Abia state, it’s eleven months ago that His Excellency, Dr Alex Otti promised Abians that he was going to rebuild the state and you will agree with me that it has been eleven months of power parked performance by this administration”
“We’, ve done so much in eleven months and that’s not sounding immodest. It’s been a case of promises made and promises kept. Last month, when the government paid outstanding pension arrears to our pensioners, there was a promise made and that promise is that as of this month (April), our pensioners were going to get 100 per cent of their pensions , I want to announce to us that ,that has just happened, since the 27th of this month they’ve been receiving their alerts.” said Kanu.
Also Chinedu Ekeke, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor, in his contribution, assured that the Alex Otti-led administration was interested in the welfare of the workers.
“The federal government is currently considering a wage review and negotiations are ongoing and at the state executive council level, we are monitoring that conversation.
” Our stand as a state government is that we do not want to go ahead of the federal government to make a proclamation on that because you do not know where the direction that the federal government is headed. So, it’s better for us to wait and then see what the federal government wants to do and then we now look at what we can afford as a state and then move but clearly, the state government is interested in the improvement of workers’ welfare and salaries’ increment is part of that plan.”
Answering a question on the incessant harassment of Abians and residents in Aba by the rapid response team, Ekeke said such was not acceptable by the government and would not be tolerated in the state.
“Abia state under the current leadership is different in terms of how we think and how we do things around the government and His Excellency, Dr. Alex Otti took an oath to actually protect the lives and property of everybody in the state. Within the limit His Excellency can do he is doing that”
