Somethings Are Happening

Workers have been on our minds in the country this week. NLC threatened to strike on Wednesday 20 July, everyone is discussing the N18,000 minimum salary increase for workers, Governors agreed to increase the minimum wage but asked the President to drop the current resource allocation formula for one that will enable them pay the minimum salary and the President has agreed. It has been a very good week for labour indeed- nice one NLC!  

Well done

Vacation has commenced for school children and so the CDA STARS team has settled into administrative work - sending the bank account forms to the banks, collecting the bank account numbers for the accounts that have been opened and compiling the accounts details. Believe me, the administrative process is not easy at all and it is a slow, since due process at every level has to be complied with. It has been tough explaining to the parents of CDA STARS that they should hold on to their monies until the accounts are open. We have had people trooping into our office with their hard earned cash to pay into the bank accounts, a harbinger of success for CDA STARS project, I believe. Well done CDA STARS team, well done Governor.

Sanusi, please encourge
banks' creativity

The processing process has however, dampened our joy a bit. In our bid to use banks near the communities, we used First Bank for some of the communities as opposed to just Wema Bank, who is our partner Bank, as they were the only bank that expressed their interest in partnering with us at the commencement of the project. We submitted the filled bank forms to First Bank only for them to say they cannot open the accounts without certain details - birth certificate for example-from the benefitting students. We asked them to use the Government as a reference to these accounts which will simplify things, but they refused! We had to collect the filled forms from the Bank, only to discover that most of the forms were missing! And believe me when I say we went through the whole process with the Bank manager before collecting their forms to give the students oh! He no talk say problem go dey o! Nigerian banks need to be more creative…seriously! We now have to go back to these schools for the students to refill the forms before we submit them to Wema Bank. This we can only do when the schools resume in September, so some CDA STARS will not have their accounts open till then. I hope they understand my explanation that the bank is to blame! For the accounts that are ready, the N40,000 from the Government will be paid in shortly, as we have been promised by the Treasury. We should have an account opening ceremony once the transfer is done. I will invite y’all I promise.

 

My last blog explained issues the current Bayelsa State Government faced the past few years and I was to explain some of the Government’s plans this week. Well, it is rather surreal that the Governor, this week, launched the first episode of a new radio show “the Governor Explains” where he will - every week, for one hour - speak to the people on his government’s plans. My explaining has thus been made easy. The Governor spoke of the issues experienced the past years - insecurity, recession - and also explained the policy behind the change of some of its initial plans. On being asked about building houses and mini cities as the Government planned when it commenced governing, His Excellency explained that it is a futile effort to build houses in places where the people currently living there cannot afford to take the houses. He mentioned that the focus now is not just building houses but getting businesses into those towns and with the influx of people to serve those businesses, the Government will put up those houses. For example, with Brass LNG, Brass will be the Gas City for Bayelsa, thus the Government will work to put up houses in that area and turn the communities hosting the gas project into mini cities serving the project. This will be the case for Sagbama and other project host communities.

Brass Gas City

On the hospitals and health centres, His Excellency said that the 500 bed hospital which the former governor, Alamieyeseigha started building had to be redesigned to comply with the current international standards on hospitals. The number of patients in a room had to be reduced to 2 beds per room and so the hospital is now a 350 bed hospital and should be ready for commissioning soon. His Excellency explained that a number of projects were ready for commissioning but because of time constraints on his part and the need to invite a VIP to commission the projects, most of them remain facilities-in-waiting. I guess the next few months will change their status.

Let us just keep watching with open minds. Have a great week.

Government Needs Credit

A group of us interested in getting facts about Bayelsa State to the public recently set up the Peep Into Bayelsa website (www.peepintobayelsa.com). The website has a face book page with over 300 friends (after only 1 month). The face book page has been the venue of some interesting discussions on different topics including the performance of the Chief Timipre Sylva's (His Excellency) government in Bayelsa State. I have been silent during these discussion to enable me hear the people's opinions and I have been thinking a lot on some issues that were discussed. I have decided to air my perspective on this blog, since my perspective cannot be restricted to just a few lines in a comment.

I work with this Government, so some may automatically think I will not give an objective perspective on our performance, but just hear me out with an open mind, ...please.

From most of the "peepintobayelsa" facebook friends's opinions, it seems to me that their trust in our  our Government needs to be re-anchored on firmer ground. I was priviledged to have worked on His Excellency's campaign team earlier on this year, just before the Court ruled that there will be no election in Bayelsa this year. Anyone that lives in Bayelsa would have experienced the gubernatorial campaign fever during that period. We, the campaign team, were every where. Since, my love for book no get part II, I was part of the research team responsible for a number of meetings His Excellency held with Bayelsans from various sectors. It was during this period that I learnt of the problems this Government faced the past years and understood the issues clearly. Some of these meetings were held with Bayelsan professionals that reside both inside and outside Bayelsa, Traditional rulers, Chiefs and leaders that represent all the communities in Bayelsa.

His Excellency, during these meeting explained the issues the Government faced over the past few years and elaborated on his plans for the upcoming years. Let me summarise some of his explanations below and perhaps, I will blog on his plans in subsequent posts.

This Government started with His Excellency wanting to empower more Bayelsans, so most of the projects were given to Bayelsan contractors. Most of these contractors collected the mobilisation money and abandoned the projects. When action was tried to be taken against some of them, His Excellency explained how he had emissaries, comprising elders in the communities, sent to him to appeal on their behalf- how can one easliy sue one's own brother in Africa? Planning for these projects had to commence again. The ironic consequence of His Excellency's decision to use Bayelsan contractors was that some of these "in default" contractors subsequently used their "project mobilisation monies" to contest for gubernatorial elections! One wonders what a Nigerian politician should do? Empower or not so empower? This will be an interesting topic to discuss on the peepintobayelsa face book page!

Let us not forget that the last few years witnessed an upsurge in militant activities in the State that held the country to ransome and necessitated the late President Yar' Adua to grant militants amnesty conditional on them dropping their arms. The country suffered a decline in oil income during these years, since production dropped and of course, oil producing States like Bayelsa suffered gross reduction in oil revenue. With a decline in oil revenue and investors' refusal to come into our State to work at generating internal revenue (for security reasons), things were rough for the Government. Cuts were inevitable and the reform process began with weeding out ghost workers and introducing due process in contracting projects to cut expenditure costs. Nobody likes cuts and reforms. Many were unhappy.

These meetings His Excellency held with professionals and leaders of communities were interactive (akin to town hall meetings) so the people asked questions and aired their minds. They were very interesting meetings indeed! I was the stenographer at some of these meetings, so I had to listen carefully. One observation I can make is that most of the participants at these meetings pointed accusing fingers at some members of His Excellency's cabinet (at that time) for some of the problems the State had experienced and expressed their misunderstanding at why His Excellency never changed his cabinet  the past 3 years of his tenure. His Excellency believes in giving people a chance to prove themselves by allowing them control room. (I certainly cannot complain on this belief, as I need control room o!) He also believes in job security and continuity in government, hence he kept the same cabinet team most of the years of his tenure and only just dissolved the cabinet in June 2011 to reconstitute a new team.

The participants at these meetings- many of them were previously anti-government- left the meetings clearer on the State's issues and the steps being taken to address them. They advised  His Excellency to host similar meetings frequently. I hope you are somewhat clearer as well. As I earlier said, on my next posts, I will blog on a few of the steps the Government has taken and is planning to take to sort out issues the State is facing and hopefully my readers and "peepintobayelsa" face book friends will understand the Government better and give us some more credit.

"Government and Governed need to walk hand in hand for our State's development, let us work together." Tonbofa Ashimi

Government Priority Struggles- Media v. Projects

Priorities, priorities, priorities..... I heard this word everywhere I went this week. In the speech that heralded Okonjo Iweala's "second coming" (as her appointment as a minister under the Jonathan government is being called) where she advocated cutting the Federal Government's high recurrent expenditure for infrastracture expenditure, to the meeting I had with some Bayelsa State Ministry of Health officials, where they pushed for the government to request for hospital equipments as against hospital consummables from interested foreign partners. Also during a casual discussion with some non governmental professionals, the discussants advised that the Bayelsa State government should spend more on media.

Life is all about priorities, especially as regards government spending. You know, the basic economics topics we studied in senior secondary school- opportunity cost, list of preference, scarcity of resources- are applicable in everything we do. Since resources are naturally scarce, for every choice we make, the forgone option is the opportunity cost, hence the need to make a preference list of all your needs before choosing.

I have learnt during my experience in government that no government can please all its citizens. The goal should be to please majority of them. Because in listing the needs of the people, standpoint is very important. From the standpoint of youth groups, sport activities might be higher up than in the list of older age group, whilst roads might be more important for the business communities than schools. Thus, appreciation of government policies might depend on which group you belong.

In the current Chief Timipre Sylva government, creating an attractive environment for investors was a top priority, hence the need for reforms like those under the due process regime, Bayelsa Transparency Initiative (where government expenditure will be made public). Due to the restiveness caused by militancy, there was also an urgent need to secure the State for the citizens and potential investors, making it necessary for investing in security vote, projects like the Child Development Account: Savings, Training and Rewarding Savers (CDA STARS) Project (where the Government saves money in collaboration with the students and parents to plan for the children's future and prevent them from engaging in militancy, see www.bayelsacdastars.com), and the creation of a State security team "Operation Famou Tamgbe".

Bayelsa State is largely a civil servant State, where government employs majority of the people. The Government spends a high percentage of its monthly expenditure on payment of salaries and civil servants attest to the fact that their salaries have never been delayed or unpaid. Payment of salaries is clearly high up the Bayelsa State Government's preference list, taking up the space of possible infrastructure projects.The reasoning behind prioritizing attracting investors was to get investors to share the employment of Bayelsans, which will free up the money the Government spends on salaries, and encourage the Government to undertake more infrastructure activities. We all need to work with the Government to succeed in attracting investors for the good of Bayelsa State.

Nonetheless, this Government has had infrastructural projects in some sectors high up its preference list as well. I had the opportunity of being with a team that showed some regulators some of the State's infrastructural projects over the past 2 years during the week - the 350 bed hospital, the water and power projects, amongst others - and was full of smiles when the regulators expressed their amazement on the number of ongoing infrastructual projects in Bayelsa State. This led to the discussion of whether more money should be spent on the press to intimate the people on these projects or not. If the press expenditure is increased, will this not eat out of the money for infrastructure? But if the people do not know of these projects -as is the case in Bayelsa today- how will they believe the Government is working hard for them? I recall a certain former Nigerian State government constantly advertised the State's projects on CNN but the indigenes of the State said that the adverts were for projects that existed only on the proposed model for the State! What a battle governing really is!

The lesson I have learnt from my governmental experience is that in assessing a government's performance, we should look for the things that the particular government has done and understand the reasons behind them, then we can realistically rate the government's perfomance. In looking for these things, the newspapers are solely not the source for information, as a N2m expense for newpapers adverts every other day by any government will render important projects as opportunity costs. We should look for the facts from direct sources. All in all, the government and the governed need to partner to succeed in governing.

How high up should media be on a Government's preference list? Comment below or follow my twitter account: @tonbofa.

Have a great week...

Share your dream with me

What do you want to be when you grow up?



I want to be a lawyer

I asked the CDA STARS in all the 24 schools in the 8 LGA of Bayelsa State that the CDA Project Team visited this question and it is funny that the responses from the students were the same. They wanted to be doctors, lawyers, accountants, governors, the president, petroleum engineer (in one case), and even movie stars. It is encouraging to know that there are still young ones in our State that aspire towards these noble professions. There have been instances where children have declared the sole goal of being militants, a vey scary thought, indeed! I explained to the students that the CDA STARS Project's objective is to work with them towards achieving their dreams.  "The Governor wants to make sure you become the person you dream of becoming tomorrow", I told the students.

We must achieve your dreams, I say

One of the CDA STARS' parents stated that the N40,000 to be deposited in each of the 1,000 students' account and the matching funds to be deposited by the government, any time a student saves in the account, will encourage the students to work hard to, not only finish senior secondary school, but also to move on to the next level on his career dream so as to get the money in the savings account. The major objective of the Project is to teach the youth how to plan towards achieving their goals. If we can get them to start planning towards their tomorrow- even if their planning is just towards getting their hands at the government money when they graduate from senior secondary school- then we will have grown ups who would have experienced that hardwork can get them their desired goal.

Yes Sir, enjoy your job too

What struck me, when the students were sharing their dreams, is that none of them wants to be a hairdresser, tailor, mechanic, or any other blue collar type work. This is a reflection of the discrimination against these types of jobs that is present in our country today. Nobody wants to acquire these kinds of skills! Amazingly, there is dire need for professionals in these areas. It is a major problem finding a good plumber in Nigeria today, na trial and error dem dey do o! 

Part of the objective of the CDA STARS Project is to provide trainings for these students in some kind of skill. After the accounts have been opened and the students start saving, the government intends to partner with organisations that will train these students in one skill or the other that they can fall back on, should they fail to achieve their dreams of today. I know a lady who says that when her marriage collapsed and she found herself having to provide for her 3 children with no job, she had to learn how to make buns, from a friend, to hawk for their livelihood. We need to encourage our children to learn one skill or the other. We need to discourage the discrimination against such blue collar jobs so that young ones can take pride in doing these jobs and develop themselves in these areas.

Water, water, water everywhere

It is funny that most of these CDA STARS students live in villages completely cut off by water, yet none of them dreams to become a fisherman! The Government hopes to reorient the minds of these students to see that there is nothing wrong with being a plumber, hairdresser, tailor.

Bayelsans have great dreams too

I can now boast to be an expert on Bayelsa State matters, since I have toured the 8 LGASs of Bayelsa State and discussed with the people of the different communities we visited. My expert opinion is that the people of Bayelsa are open minded and will embrace a different way of doing things, where the good of such new methods can be clarified to them. The manner in which the CDA STARS Project was embraced all around the State has eliminated all fears I have had on whether Bayelsans will work with His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva, in implementing similar great ideas he has for Bayelsans. Bayelsans have dreams of being great too. Let us work together to achieve our dreams.