THE Governor of Abia State, Mr. Alex Otti, has bemoaned that funds belonging to the state was shared as blood tonic by some persons in the past, even as he charged heads of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to devise workable and enduring strategies to improved the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
Speaking at the Government House, Umuahia, during a follow-up retreat where MDAs heads led their teams to present strategies on improving the state’s finances, Otti stressed that Abia would not need to depend on loans to fund this year’s budget if its IGR is increased.
He stated that elsewhere, governments generate income to undertake expenditure, describing as a misnomer, a situation where states go to the federal government cap-in-hand for allocation, but added that if the right thing is done, by the end of the year the state would not have borrowed as much as anticipated in the budget.
The governor clarified that the repealing of the pension law for ex-governors and their deputies was a cost-cutting system and not a political witch-hunt targeted at any individual, advising politicians who allegedly shared the state’s money as blood tonic in the past to understand that that era was gone.
He stated: “We don’t believe that politics is a business; we believe that people should have things they are doing before coming to serve, and if you have offered yourself to serve, then you should be willing to make the required sacrifices.
“If you find yourself in this place, you should count yourself lucky that people believe in you, gave you their support and their votes. It is a privilege and the least that is expected of you is to make sacrifices for the betterment of the state.
“So, the days of sharing money are over; the days of blood tonic politics are also over. This is the time to make sacrifices for the interest of the State.”
Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Mike Akpara, stressed the need to change the narrative, saying government must do things differently through the generation of funds internally, assuring that the Abians would not be taxed unduly, but based on what government promised them.
