Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has advised the board and management of the South East Development Commission, SEDC, to prioritize electricity power supply as a critical component of its development agenda for the zone.
Otti while applauding President Tinubu for creating and inaugurating SEDC, and the National Assembly for giving the Commission a speedy passage, said the commission should among other things, provide an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
Governor Otti told a delegation of the SEDC Board that investment in power was the way to go as it held 60% string of economic development of the South East Region.
“These are the kind of investments that government should make. You are stabilizing your economy. If you don’t stabilize the economy, you can’t deal with unemployment; you can’t deal with poverty ravaging everybody right now.
You are the regional development body speaking for all of us. An area that is so critical to us; a major area to pay attention, is power, electricity.
“If you are talking about industrialization, within small and medium scale enterprises, a major input into virtually every effort people make in industrialization, manufacturing is power. So if you have solved that problem you will have probably solved 60 percent of their problem. Gov. Otti stated.”
According to Governor Otti, his administration was guided by the policy of adequate power supply for SMEs and industrialization when it supported Geometric Power to come on stream. He added that discussions were on with the EEDC for government take over to provide power to the rest of the state not covered by Geometric’s, 81 megawatts.
He said the SEDC, as an interventionist agency, was long over due, “because when things like the civil war happens, a country needs to be deliberate in rebuilding its nation and reintegrating it.”
Otti however observed that the South Easterners had since reintegrated themselves through hard work, “Our people have worked so hard to reintegrate themselves, that’s why when you come to Abia State, and any other state in South East, our economy is an economy that does not have room for palliatives. All that our people want is that you create an enabling environment and they will sort themselves out.
“We are lucky that people from this side are people who would want to do something, so when you build road, clean the environment, provide enabling environment for their businesses to thrive, provide good hospitals, they can sort themselves out.”
The Governor assured the Commission of collaboration and support in the mandate to develop the region.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Emeka Wogu, said the commission had the mandate to deal with the developmental challenges confronting the Southeast states even as he acknowledged the commitment of Governor Otti in developing Abia state as evident in many infrastructural development projects.
He pledged the support of the commission to the State while bridging the development gaps caused by years of neglect as well as position the Southeast for sustainable progress through the mandate of reconstruction, reconciliation and rehabilitation.
Presenting the Commission’s development raid map, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the SEDC, Dr Mark Okoye, said the commission had the mandate to bring back the South East economy as the fastest growing economy as it was in the 60’s and 70’s leveraging its technological, entrepreneurship and agricultural potentials.
Echezona Okafor.
