Otti issues ultimatum for stalled initiatives, demands completion by April

Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has promised to resolve all issues impeding the commencement of the Abia State Integrated Infrastructural Development projects to enable acceleration of the projects across the state, having paid N2bn counterpart fund.

Otti disclosed this on Tuesday while receiving a delegation of the Federal Ministry of Finance and African Development Bank, led by Dr Oyebola Akande, who came to explore and discuss the best way to accelerate ABSIID projects in the state.

He assured them that there would be immediate action to ensure the state makes progress on the project.
Otti directed his Chief of Staff to become part of the team and ensure a weekly report was given to him.

The governor disagreed with plans to flag off the project by the middle of the year and insisted it should be flagged off by April, attributing the delay to an information gap and saying he had not been properly updated.

He said, “Everything that needs to be done from our side should be done, it’s not finance. Finance (Ministry) doesn’t have anything to do with it at this stage. That’s why they are not in this meeting.

“Thank you once again for this visit. I really appreciate it and if you didn’t come, I wouldn’t know that the problem is us. So, we are going to solve this problem.

“And you are talking of flag-off in the middle of the year. No, whatever it takes, we must flag-off in April.

“So, it’s not in our best interest that we are not making progress? I can assure you that from now on, you will see progress.

“I’m going to sit with them (ABSIID officials), and we are going to resolve all these issues. They are non-issues, we can deal with them. We want to start, latest by April.

“Nobody knows when the rains will come, and nobody knows how long the rains are going to be. So, whatever be the case, let’s just start.”

Otti appreciated Akande’s passion for the success of the project, regretting that he had not been getting the right information and situational report about the project.

“Clearly, I have not been getting the right messages and the right situational report. I have been asking, and then all the report I got was that the problem is with ABSIID, the Federal Ministry, the Bank.

“I shouldn’t be hearing some of these things, because clearly, we’ve not done very well in giving feedback. In fact, at some point, I was wishing and I said, the rains will soon return. So, we’ve lost the whole of the dry season.

“Because I know clearly that once you have paid the counterpart fund, which we have paid, you can go to sleep,” Otti stated.

Earlier in her speech, the leader of the delegation and representative of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Dr Oyebola Akande, commending Governor Otti for the timely release of N2bn counterpart funding for the project, said their mission was to see how they could team up with the state government and their financing partners to accelerate the implementation of the project without further delay.

“So, our mission here today is to see how we can accelerate this project. The state has a role to play, the Federal Government has a role to play, while the bank also has a role to play,” she stated.

She stressed the need for the state team to fast-track the process, having lost two years out of the five-year implementation timeframe for the project, calling for the governor’s intervention to reduce the bureaucratic bottlenecks impeding the acceleration of the project in the State Ministry of Finance.

Also, the representative of the African Development Bank, Sheila Akyza, said their overall interest was to work with the state government and ensure that the project was facilitated and implemented as soon as possible for the benefit of the people of the state, describing the project as one of the best gifts secured by Otti for the state.

The Chief of Staff to the Governor, Pastor Caleb Ajagba, and the Commissioner for Works, Engr Otumchere Oti, were present at the meeting.