The Senate has mandated its committees on Petroleum Downstream and Police Affairs to probe alleged role of security operatives in the pipeline explosion in Abia State, where 150 villagers were allegedly killed.
This followed a motion by Sen. Theodore Orji (PDP-Abia) at plenary on Wednesday.
Orji lamented that the carnage and avoidable loss of human lives in Osisioma Local Government of the state was worrisome.
He further expressed concern over alleged inaction of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over the incident.
Orji alleged that the corporation did not wade into the pipe leak that led to explosion and death of many people early enough to avoid the disaster.
He also alleged that the Police resorted to collecting money from villagers to scoop petrol in containers.
“On Friday, the day of the incident, security operatives, particularly policemen allegedly made brisk business at the place of a pipe leak as they allegedly demanded money to allow the villagers scoop petroleum product.
“There was pipeline leakage in the local government which is part of my constituency and people were killed while properties and farm products worth millions of Naira were destroyed as a result.
“The number of dead people has continued to increase daily and as at the time of writing this motion, 150 people have been confirmed dead.
“The explosion and eventual fire outbreak was not as a result of pipeline breakage or vandalism, but due to dereliction of duty by NNPC staff and compromise by the Nigerian Police.
“There are two oil pipelines across the villages affected. One is an old and abandoned pipeline,” he said.
Orji called on the senate to wade into the matter.
Contributing, lawmakers lamented the death and the inaction of relevant authorities and urged the senate to grant Orji’s prayer.
In his remarks, the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki mandated the Committees on Petroleum Downstream and that of Police Affairs to look into the matter as part of measures to forestall a recurrence.
Saraki thereafter put the prayer to a voice vote and it unanimously adopted by the lawmakers.
He asked the committees to report their findings to senate within two weeks.
Abia youths under the aegis of Good Governance Initiative (GGI) have endorsed the member representing Abia Central Senatorial district at the senate, Senator Theodore Orji for a second term because of the way he has been taking care of the youths in the state.
The youths who were overwhelmed over the on common gesture of the Abia Central senator said that since he entered the senate that they have never had it so good as they have been witnessing several good things that have been coming their way from him.
They said that what the senator has been doing goes beyond his senatorial district as he has moved motions, sponsored bills that will affect people that are outside his constituency such as moving and sponsoring the bill that will turn ABIAPOLY into federal government polytechnic which is outside his senatorial area.
Speaking with newsmen in Umahia, the president of GGI, Comrade Maureen Kelechi Onwukwe said that their group is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) which has the aim of promoting good governance in Abia state and beyond.
Onwukwe said that since he (Orji) has not forgotten the youths, old people and the vulnerable in the society that he deserves their support to go back to the senate so that they will continue to enjoy dividends of democracy from him, while the entire state will also enjoy.
She listed some of the achievements of the former governor to include scholarship scheme which over 180 indigent but brilliant youths from the zone including a blind student has benefitted from.
The GGI president said, “There are skill acquisitions across all levels of the society, renovation of schools under his area of representation, provision of boreholes with overhead tanks, electricity transformers, tricycles, vehicles among others which have gone a long way to alleviate poverty in the society”.
“Senator Orji has sponsored over 10 people oriented bills which are at various stages of being passed into law and also several motions even as first time senator of the country which is unprecedented”.
“This is a man who has seen it all, a man who has been and is still the voice of the masses, articulate distinguished gentleman, a man who always show vibrancy, consistency in discharging his legislative functions since he entered the senate chambers”.
“This man in question has delivered the dividends of democracy to the good people of Abia central senatorial district and beyond, these and many more have made us the youths of the state to lend our support to enable him to return to the senate”.
In his contribution, a former Umuahia North council chairman, Bar Suleman Ukandu thanked the youths of the state for bringing out the good works of the senator which has been visible in the senatorial district and beyond even as some of the projects are ongoing.
Ukandu said that the senator has taken it upon himself in not only making laws but also providing dividends of democracy for his constituents, “Though the legislative arm of government is mainly to make laws, but Senator Orji has gone ahead to increase human development to enable his people to be self-dependent”.
Reacting a former Chief Press Secretary (CPS) under former governor Orji, Ugochukwu Emezue said that Senator Orji as a governor left indelible marks in the political spheres of the state such as ensuring that the seat of governor touches all corners of the state.
Emezue said that equity is one of the greatest legacies his former boss has bequeathed to the people of the state which will stand the test of time, stressing that the wonderful move by Orji has given the state peace and stability which generations on born will always appreciate.
He explained that those who are fighting Orji are not doing it because he has not done well, “They are fighting him because he did not allow the old politicians to take power rather allowed equity to take place, if what he did is a sin then we are all sinners”.
The former CPS revealed that the Orji has made it clear that he wants to return to the senate after four years that he wants to retire and become and an elder statesman where he intend to serve the people better.
Abia State’s former governor Theodore Orji, who represents Abia Central Senatorial District at the Senate, has given cash and jobs tools to 180 youths in his constituency.
The youths earlier trained in various areas of agriculture across the country’s best agricultural institutions were empowered with the sum of N100,000 each including some bags of fertilisers, while others got tricycles to enable them fend for themselves.
Speaking while presenting the cheques in Umuahia, the state capital, Orji said the gesture is aimed at ensuring that the beneficiaries have a decent life.
Orji said when God blesses someone that the best thing to do is for such a person to reach out and bless others who are in need, stressing that by so doing that the society will be better and the youths will incline less towards crimes.
The distinguished senator explained that contrary to what people have been saying, “What I have been doing is not to show off but to return to the system the little I have to ensure that the youths have a better life than the one they are currently living”.
He said, “As your senator representing you at the senate, I want to assure you of adequate representation which has made me to achieve a lot at the senate in the short time I have been your senator”.
Orji said that his interest runs beyond his senatorial district, stressing that one or the bills he sponsored was for the federal government to come and take over the Abia State Polytechnic in Aba, “So that the financial burden will be less on the state government”.
The senator who enumerated some of his achievements at the senate said they include the motion asking the federal government to provide security along the rail lines to secure life and property of both the corporation and their commuters.
He said that every academic session that ten students from the six council areas in his senatorial district benefit from his scholarship scheme with the sum of N 100,000 each, “I pledge to continue this scheme so long as I remain in the senate”.
Orji used the forum to endorse Governor Okezie Ikpeazu and his deputy, Ude Oko-Chukwu for second term as the governor and deputy governor of the state and all others who are in different elective political positions in the state.
He urged members of his party the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to remain faithful, stressing that they are not going to disappoint them but urged them to go all out and obtain their PVCs to enable them return their candidates back to office come 2019.
Earlier in his speech the chairman of the empowerment committee Chidiebere Nwoke said that financial grants (N100,000 each) will be given to those who have been trained in various agricultural disciplines to enable them take off.
Nwoke said that 30 tricycles would be given out to beneficiaries while the young farmers will also be given bags of fertilizers apart from the sum of N 100,000 each, stressing that the constituency office of Senator Orji is the most vibrant in the country.
He used the ceremony to call for the endorsement of Orji to go back to the senate come 2019 which the crowd gave their overwhelming voice vote in the affirmative asking him to return to the senate.
The Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Abia, Chief Uchenna Obigwe, says at 26 “the state is still crawling like a baby,” in terms of development.
Obigwe spoke in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Umuahia, on the 26th anniversary of the state and level of progress so far recorded.
“At 26, Abia is still crawling like a baby because previous administrations failed to develop the state,” he said.
NAN recalls that Abia was created on Aug. 27, 1991, by then military President Ibrahim Babangia.
According to Obigwe, the extent of decay in infrastructure is enormous and that it will take time for any meaningful development to be achieved in the state.
On the fate of workers, the NLC chairman said that it had not been easy for civil servants in the state, owing to the delays in the payment of salaries.
“You know that this is my constituency, so I can safely say that this administration is doing well to better the lot of the civil servants in the state.
“Today, the governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, has paid workers in the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) up to date.
“We only have issues with the local government workers, teachers in primary and secondary schools, some parastatal agencies and pensioners.
“If the government can take care of the salaries of this category of workers like those in the MDAs then our problem is over,” he said.
Also, the pioneer chairman of the state council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr Ogbonnaya Iheaka, shared similar opinion that at 26, Abia had not done well in the area of development.
Iheaka told NAN in a telephone interview that the state had come of age, but lagged behind in terms of development.
He expressed worry that past administrations failed to put the basic things that would propel development.
“Certain basic things that ought to be done to drive development in the state were not done.
“For instance, it was only during the last administration that workers’ secretariat was built yet it was far below the standard you find in other states,” Iheaka said.
He also said that the state had not experienced the required federal presence and that past administrations did not do much to attract federal and international development agencies to the state.
He said that the state had achieved a milestone in power sharing, particularly the governorship position, among the three senatorial districts.
Iheaka, however, said that the development of the state was seriously threatened by sectional tendencies amongst the political leaderships.
He said: “Since the return of democratic rule in 1999, political leaders have concentrated development in their own areas and paid little or no attention to other sections of the state.
“Governors always reserved strategic political and civil service appointments for people from their area.
“What this means is that place of origin has taken the position of merit,” he said, adding that the “ugly trend had destroyed the state civil service.”
To further buttress his point, he said that the administration of Sen. Theodore Orji introduced an eight-year age limit for directors and permanent secretaries.
He said that the policy swept many people out even before their mandatory retirement age.
Iheaka regretted that after filling the vacancies created by the policy, the administration quickly reversed the policy and returned to status quo.
“This unwholesome sectional tendency had been the trend since 1999 to date and it is dangerous for the state,” Iheaka said.
According to him, the attitude of successive administrations is one of “the winner takes all” to the detriment of the interest of the greater majority of the people.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the Senate on Wednesday raised the alarm, alleging plots to harass, intimidate and place the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, in detention in the next two weeks.
Addressing journalists at the National Assembly, the senators fingered “some persons in the Presidency” as masterminds of the plot.
Speaking on behalf of the opposition lawmakers, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe said the unnamed persons were plotting to use the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other security agencies to carry out the plot.
According to him, the security agencies were planning to plant huge sums of money in Ekweremadu’s residence in Enugu and elsewhere, then conduct a search on the premises to fish out the planted incriminating items.
He alleged another plot to plant a gun in his car just to frame him up.
Condemning the alleged plot, which they said must be resisted, the senators called on peace loving members of the public to be aware of what they described as an insidious plan to cow dissenting voices in the country.
Abaribe said the detention of former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, his Benue and Niger States counterparts, Gabriel Suswam and Babangida Aliyu respectively, has raised questions about the administration’s human rights compliance.
“This is a worrying trend about happenings in our country today. A situation where you can be set up through the security agencies and be put in prison for nothing sounds the death knell for democracy and human rights in Nigeria,” Abaribe added.
Others at the briefing were Ekweremadu; Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio; Senator Theodore Orji and Gilbert Nnaji among others.
The Federal High Court in Abuja has been asked to disqualify Senate President, Bukola Saraki and 10 other Senators being prosecuted and investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from participating in the process leading to the confirmation of Ibarhim Magu as Chairman of the EFCC.
The request formed part of prayers contained in a suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/102/2017 filed in Abuja on Monday by a lawyer, Raji Rasheed Oyewumi.
Other Senators named in the suit with Saraki, as defendants, include Godswill Akpabio, Jonah Jang, Aliyu Wammako, Stella Oduah, Theodore Orji, Rabiu Kwankwanso, Ahmed Sani, Danjuma Goje, Joshua Dariye and Adamu Abdullahi.
Also listed as defendants are the Clerk of the National Assembly, the Senate, the Attorney General of the Federation and Magu.
The plaintiff’s contention is to the effect that, since the Senators are either being tried or investigated for economic and financial crimes in various courts and tribunals by the EFCC under the leadership of Magu, he (Magu) will not be afforded fair
Senate President, Bukola Saraki
hearing by the Senate headed by Saraki.
Oyewumi stated, in a supporting affidavit, that Saraki exhibited bias against the confirmation of Magu when he (Saraki) failed to read the letter of the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, seeking the confirmation of Magu, on the floor of the Senate until July 14, 2016 even when he got the letter on June 17, 2016.
He said, in further manifestation of their bias and conflicting interest in the nomination of the 15th defendant (Magu) the 1st defendant (Saraki) together with 2nd to 11 defendants (other named Senators) did not consider the 15th defendant’s nomination until December 15, 2016 when they rejected Magu’s nomination six months after the letter was read on the floor.
The plaintiff said the Senators flouted the Senate Standing Orders when they acted on the letter by rejecting Magu’s nomination without first, referring Magu to the appropriate committee of the 13th defendant (Senate), an executive or closed session instead of an open session.
He added that unlike when he recused himself from the proceedings leading to the passage of the Bill for the amendment of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act on October 27, 2016, because of his ongoing prosecution at the CCT, Saraki failed to recuse himself when the Senate was considering the confirmation of Magu.
Senator Godswill Akpabio
The plaintiff identified some of the cases against the Senators, which Magu and his EFCC are currently handling.
“The 1st defendant (Saraki) was investigated by the 15th defendant on an allegation of false declaration of assets which culminated in the 1ts defendant’s arraignment and ongoing prosecution at the CCT in charge No: CCT/ABJ/01/2015, and a prime prosecution witness in the trial, Michael Wetkas is an officer of the EFCC.
He said the 2nd defendant (Akpabio) was being investigated by the EFCC over the allegation of abuse of office, diversion of public funds and embezzlement in relation to a petition by a lawyer, Leo Ekpeyong.
The plaintiff said the 3rd defendant, (Jang) was being investigated by Magu’s EFCC for allegedly awarding various contracts running into several billions of naira without due process and allegedly diverting N2billion Small and medium Scale Enterprises loan given by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) during his tenure.
The reliefs being sought by the plaintiffs are:
*A declaration that the 1st defendant is disqualified by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) from presiding over or participating in the deliberation, screening and voting on the nomination of the 15th defendant for the position of Chairman of the EFCC due to the apparent conflict of interest arising from the 15th defendant’s active role in his ongoing trial at the CCT.
*A declaration that the 2nd to 11th defendants are jointly and severally disqualified by the Constitution and the Senate Standing Order 2015 (as amended) from participating In the deliberation, screening and voting on the nomination of the 15th defendant for the position of Chairman of EFCC due to the apparent conflict of interest arising from their pending or ongoing cases of financial and economic crimes, given that the 15th defendant is coordinating and supervising the investigation into or prosecution for the said financial and economic crimes.
*A declaration that the 1st to 13th defendants jointly and severally violated the Senate Standing Order 2015 9as amended)n when they participated in the screening, deliberation and voting on the first or earlier nomination of the 15th defendant in the 13th defendant on the 15th day of December 2016 by not declaring their pecuniary interests in view of their pending or ongoing cases of financial and economic crimes, given that the 15th defendant is coordinating and supervising the investigation into or prosecution for the said financial and economic crimes.
*A declaration that the first and earlier rejection of the nomination of the 15th defendant for the position of Chairman of EFCC on the 15th day of December 2016 without first referring the 15th defendant to the appropriate committee of the 13th defendant and at an executive or closed session instead of an open session, is illegal, null, void and of no effect whatsoever.
*A declaration that the 15th defendant is entitled to be accorded fair hearing by the 1st to the 13th defendant during screening, deliberation and voting in the senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on his nomination for the position of Chairman of the EFCC.
*An order of injunction restraining the 1st defendant from presiding over or participating in the screening, deliberation or voting on the nomination of the 15th defendant for the position of Chairman of the EFCC.
*An order of injunction restraining the 2nd to 11th defendants from or participating in the screening, deliberation or voting on the nomination of the 15th defendant for the position of Chairman of the EFCC.
The case is yet to be assigned to any judge for hearing.
Winning an election, like that of Buhari, sets forth a series of theatrics. The easiest is the first act. He looks like a kid, who just won a prize or is celebrating a birthday. Everyone comes with a smile. They shove and tumble over each other with a congratulatory message.
They pop bottles, except Buhari would not drink given his teetotaler ways and detached dignity. No cakes will he cut either. Music flows, but not of the owambe variety but drums roll and throats are let loose with political party chants and songs.
The second act is the loyalty play. Everyone wants to remind the winner how close they were. They want to show how they fought for him, and spent their resources, sold their houses, secured loans and nearly died in accidents.
After all, one of the loyalists will say he (Buhari) can see the scar beneath his knee (he rolls up his trousers). They visited the hospital many times. The winner cannot forget when they just started out two decades ago. Others will start speaking the same language in deep and effervescent accents. They will spin yarns about village life or when they were only two together one hot afternoon drinking kunu.
Loyalty naturally gives way to intrigues. The other guy was always undermining the party and spoke one or two unkind words about him as candidate. That short fellow was seen once or twice in furtive shadows dining with the opposing candidate. No, don’t mind that other guy in white top, he does not know anything about holding an office. Others do the work for him. Or it is time to pay back our tribe after many years in oblivion, etc.
The sober act is the rare one, and that concerns me today. It is the phase of ideas. Few do anything in this area. But that is a crucial part. GMB has said he will use technocrats. That is fine. But technocrats alone cannot make a great team. Some people fought the way to Aso Rock, and if he runs a government of technocrats, he will need politicians to keep the government from falling.
Technocrats perform; politicians connect. If you don’t connect with the people, your performance will come away like a baby that is still born. You see the baby but cannot hear it. The cry is shrieking not from the little wonder in the mother’s arm but from the one carrying the little wonder. He will find a few “technoticians” – those who inhabit both virtues – and they will be invaluable. He should remember that the primary task of a leader is to raise leaders.
What concerns me in the realm of ideas is not to parrot the clichés about infrastructure, or education or power or health care. GMB said all these during the campaigns, although the details of implementation are another. What bothers me is the nature of what the British call the exchequer. Our purse is lean, and the revenue generator is atrophying. States cannot pay salaries, and some people are angry with governors for their impotence. They forget that all the resources of states are government controlled, and the absence of fiscal federalism has paralysed states in many ways as revenue drivers. They rely primarily on taxes. To generate taxes we have to animate the private sector. But the economy of the real sector has come to its knees and relies on the federal purse. Banks wait for the money from the federal and state governments.
States that have gold or have capacity to generate income from power cannot make money. If you have limestone, it belongs to the Federal Government. Oil states are entitled to only 13 percent. We are witnessing the chokehold of a federal leviathan. When the federal fails, everyone fails.
While we wait for the liberation of states as semi-independent engines of growth, the fulcrum of any economy is the private sector. Humans are the best resource. They are the nucleus of productivity.
I focus on two areas of creativity. The first is the technology area. The second is textile. The other day I visited Umuahia and my cell phone ran out of power. I sent for a replacement. But it worked only for two days enough for me to return home to my original one. My first thought was to rile at the phony genius. But I have had to rethink this opinion. Those who make counterfeit cell phone, televisions, etc, betray a fundamental talent. They know how to make things. Many of them do not have formal training on these but they are products of enthusiasm.
Abia State Governor Theodore Orji had set out a modest effort to work on formalising the skills and turning their talent into gems for the country. But it is a good start.
The Buhari administration should take a special look at these young men who do these things we call “fake.” If they know the technology, they should be encouraged to strike out on their own, and create new ones. These men are idealists. As D.H. Lawrence said the most idealist nations make the most machines. The United States has led the world in this regard because the society enables the environment for individuals to develop stuff and later puts the infrastructure and resources of state at their disposals. Buhari can borrow a leaf from Lincoln’s words in this regard, “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.”
A new book on the Wright Brothers written by historian David McCullough is making waves in the west today and it celebrates the rigour, dedication and enterprise of two brothers, Wilbur and Orville, who revolutionised how we move.
It is a pity that the Southeast states have not jumped at the inspiration of Governor Orji to pool their resources to turn the enterprising élan of the young technologists. In them sleeps the germ of an industrial giant. Isreal today leads the world in semiconductors and they have their equivalent of the Silicon Valley near Jerusalem. It began when the Defence Ministry laid off workers and enabled them to produce chips for their armoury. Many companies sprang up, and the United States encourages them with billions of dollars of free money every year.
The textile industry is another instance. Nigeria was the capital of textile in West Africa, and Kaduna and Lagos were two of the mainstays before they gradually collapsed. The talent is still here and the genius is coy in dormant minds of many Nigerians.
The Buhari regime needs to look that way, as well as other areas like furniture, food processing, etc. where, to quote the poet Dryden, lies “God’s plenty.”
Abia State Governor Theodore Orji has enjoined Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members and the people to vote the party’s candidates on Saturday.
Speaking at the Abia Central mini campaign in Umuahia, the governor said he had confidence in the party’s candidates to deliver the dividends of democracy.
Orji urged the Abia Central PDP candidates to be steadfast and to strive to win, stressing that it’s one of the ways to justify the confidence the party and state have in them.
He thanked the people for voting PDP candidates in the Presidential and National Assembly elections and urged them to do likewise on Saturday to show that PDP was on ground.
The governor asserted that the party had prospects for Ndigbo, adding that there is hope for the PDP in the state and the country despite the setback in the last elections.
Minister of State for Defence, Col. Austin Akobundu (rtd), advised PDP members to ensure the success of the party’s governorship and House of Assembly candidates.
He thanked them for their votes in the March 28 elections.
The House of Representatives candidates-elect; Sam Onuigbo and Darlington Nwokocha, thanked the Abia Central people for returning them and other PDP candidates, urging them to ensure PDP’s success on Saturday.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Southeast has slammed Abia State Governor Theodore Orji for allegedly attacking former Vice President Alex Ekwueme.
Ekwueme, one of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said in an interview he granted a national weekly that the party had lost focus and would not receive the votes it got in the Southeast in 2011.
But Orji, speaking as the chairman of the Southeast Governors’ Forum, said Ekwueme had lost touch with politics, adding that PDP would give President Goodluck Jonathan a 100 per cent support in the Southeast.
He said: “Jonathan will not share Southeast’s votes with anybody. The All Progressives Congress (APC) sounds like Boko Haram and you cannot see any well- meaning Igbo son in the party. Governor Rochas Okorocha knows he has missed the way and Ogbonnaya Onu cannot even win in his ward. So no other party is recognised here.”
Spokesman for the Southeast APC Osita Okechukwu decried Orji’s statement, saying: “The Southeast All Progressives Congress (APC) takes exception to the reckless statement in the national newspapers credited to the Chairman, Southeast Governors’ Forum and Abia State Governor Theodore Orji, to the effect that our revered elder statesman, one of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), indeed the founding chairman of the PDP and erudite professional, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, is out of touch with reality.
“We assume that Dr. Ekwueme’s sin is his innocent comment:
‘The truth is that the PDP as it is today is not the PDP we founded in 1998; that is the truth. I won’t hide it from anybody. It is not the PDP I risked my life to found in 1998. Now the PDP has been hijacked by people who have no philosophical or spiritual attachment to the precepts that informed the formation of the party in 1998. What I envisaged for PDP was that it would be a mass movement, satisfying the needs of the masses and having membership from all over the country.”
APC said: “We are at a loss how on earth our revered elder statesman, former vice president, erudite scholar and one of the leading lights of Ndigbo, Dr. Ekwueme, can be out of touch with realities, because of his concern for the downtrodden.
“It is our view that no responsible person will castigate Ekwueme for his patriotic concern that the country under President Jonathan is sliding into a failed state.”
Abia State Governor Theodore Orji has presented a budget of N102.4billion, tagged: “Valedictory Budget”, to the House of Assembly.
He said it was to complete projects within and outside the state.
Presenting the appropriation bill, the governor said the budget was made up of estimated recurrent expenditure of N62.2billion and estimated capital expenditure of N40.18billion.
He said it showed a decrease of about 12 per cent below the 2014 budget outlay of N115.3 billion, which required prudent measures for its implementation.
Orji attributed the decrease to the global fall in crude price, saying the 2015 fiscal year would usher in discipline and advancement, to make the state better.
According to him, the bill would ensure the completion of projects, create jobs and reduce poverty, adding that it would transform Abia.
He said the bill was premised on the frame work of International Public Sector Accounting Standard (IPSAS) and structured along a Medium Term Expenditure Framework, “with the projections for 2015 to 2017, using 2013 as the base year.”
Speaker Ude Oko-Chukwu assured the governor of the readiness of the lawmakers to expedite action on the bill.
