•IMT to become degree awarding institute
Stakeholders from across Enugu State yesterday approved the setting up of Local Government Caretaker Committees for the 17 local council areas in the state pending the time adequate budgetary allocations would be provided in the 2016 state appropriation for the conduct of local government elections in the state.
The stakeholders who gathered at the Old Government Lodge, Enugu, gave the approval after Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi briefed them on various programmes and projects of his administration, including the issue of the pending local government polls since the tenure of the local government councils will expire on January 4, 2016.
Consequently, the governor announced at the expanded meeting that “in order to avoid vacuum, on 4th January, 2016, the local government caretaker committees will be constituted and this is in keeping with the extant laws of Enugu State.
“Whatever we are doing will be in consonance with the Local Government Laws”, he told the political and opinion leaders, including Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, immediate past governor of the state, Chief Sullivan Chime, former Information Minister, Chief Nnia Nwodo, former Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, among very many others.
Also at the meeting, the governor announced to the stakeholders that the state-owned Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu would be made a degree-awarding institution to place it at the same progression level with similar institutions elsewhere in the country established in the 1970s.
IMT was established in 1973 and its present management and the state government in a meeting a few days ago agreed that it was long overdue to become a degree-awarding institution.
The governor’s announcement of the move yesterday was greeted with a resounding applause as he also enunciated plans to rehabilitate the institution.