The Progressives Media acknowledges the recent response by the Anambra State government to our previous publication regarding the Anambra Vision 2070 plan. While we appreciate the government’s engagement, we take issue with the characterization of our media group as “faceless” and “mischievous.”
We are a registered organization of Anambra State citizens affiliated with the APC, dedicated to promoting effective and transparent governance. We believe in holding our elected officials accountable and fostering constructive dialogue for the betterment of our state.
However, upon reviewing the government’s response, we feel compelled to reiterate our concerns regarding the implementation of the Anambra Vision 2070 plan.
Having gone through the acerbic yet empty response by the governor’s Spokesperson, Christian Aburime we are constrained to state that the state government is simply living in an alternate reality.
Christian Aburime in his response showed clearly how detached Governor Soludo is from happenings in the state. We strongly maintain that the Soludo administration is stifling small businesses not just by its oppressive tax regime but also through its barbaric destruction of wares of petty traders, hawkers and other small businesses by government-sponsored thugs.
Even the blind in Anambra State have seen many incidents where operatives of the Soludo army were raiding small businesses and destroying their goods on the spot, sometimes the government thugs seize the goods of traders and dump them in their patrol vehicles for sharing later. This is the height of brazen illegality and insensitivity. We wonder how a government that carries out such acts against its traders will claim to be business-friendly.
Mr. Governor’s Spokesperson claimed that there are ‘targeted tax breaks for specific sectors like ICT, agriculture…’, this is simply unbelievable! By now every Anambrarian knows that Soludo’s ‘tax breaks begin and end on his lips. The governor on two occasions during a live broadcast to the state announced tax exemptions for petty traders, wheelbarrow pushers, hawkers and artisans. These so-called exemptions were never implemented for once as the Soludo tax army continued to hound these small businesses daily.
Mr Aburime follows the same pattern of “all talks and no concrete evidence on the ground’ that has become the trademark of Governor Soludo. The governor relishes reeling out grandiose plans and rhetorics with little in the way of implementation. One such is the Export Emporium his Spokesperson mentioned in the reply. A state that has not gotten the basics right for productivity to thrive is eyeing an Export Emporium. Until the Soludo administration changes its anti-trade and anti-productivity posturing, we’ll continue running around in circles.
Meanwhile, we observed the eerie silence of the governor’s Spokesperson on the Soludo administration’s plan to spend N66.2 billion over three years to construct a 10-storey hotel in Awka using taxes collected from petty traders, hawkers, transporters etc. We would have loved to hear the rationale for such an investment at this point especially considering that Anambra has already invested billions in the Agulu Lake Hotel. Awka, the capital territory also boasts of countless number quality hotels.
We struggle to understand the business sense in the so-called distribution of 1.1 million hybrid coconut and palm seedlings to over 100,000 households and the budgeting of N8.12 billion just for seedlings! We believe this is a reckless expenditure that does not guarantee value for public funds. To start with, it is irresponsible of a government to share oil palm and coconut seedlings with households with the belief that it would lead to an agricultural revolution. Many of these seedlings would likely not be planted or nurtured well and will end up a waste of resources.
Our thinking would have been that to beat food inflation, the Soludo government ought to have invested heavily in food crops such as rice paddies to provide raw materials to the many rice mills in the state and to provide numerous farm inputs such as fertilisers and machinery to enable our farmers produce more food crops and crash food inflation in the state.
The distribution of oil palm and coconut seedlings remains a jamboree, which has become a pastime of the APGA government. Ndi Anambra is yet to recover from the Ugu export jamboree and now this. The Soludo administration by their response has admitted that it has no agricultural policy on the ground to alleviate the suffering of the masses.
On housing, the governor’s Spokesperson admitted that the Soludo administration is not doing anything and would rather spend the N41.78 billion of taxpayer’s money voted for the Ministry of Housing to build frivolous items other than actual low-cost houses for Ndi Anambra!
We still maintain our position that the N2.48 billion and N1.05 billion Soludo plans to spend out of the capital expenditure of the Ministry of Housing to build quarters for political appointees (who most likely already have houses) and upgrading of Alex Ekwueme Square respectively can construct 18 blocks of flats with at least 10 units of two-bedroom flats in each block. This makes more sense and is just a fraction of the N41.78 billion budgeted for housing in the MTEF. As Awka grapples with acute housing shortage, Gov. Soludo prefers to build houses for his aides and leave the people to their fate.
Soludo’s Spokesperson’s response showed a lack of vision by the APGA-led Soludo administration when it suggested that building roads is the only thing there is to a transportation system. This is shocking, to say the least. We are constrained to use the Lagos example. The Lagos State government did not wait until it had finished constructing every road in Lagos before putting in place a working mass transit system, with the flagship evidence of that being the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) scheme. Why can’t Anambra replicate a similar model?
In the area of rail lines Governor Soludo is not interested in that beyond talks. Once again, in Lagos, construction of the Red Line was flagged off in late 2021 and in less than three years, the line is ready for commissioning. In Anambra State, the state government lacks strategic planning and implementation abilities. This reinforces our position that the Soludo administration lacks any sense of direction. When one goes further into other areas of governance such as waste management, provision of portable water, security of our cities, towns and villages etc one would realise that this government is just on autopilot.
While constructive criticism may not always find open ears within the Soludo administration, the Anambra APC Progressives Media remains steadfast in its commitment.
We believe in the power of constructive dialogue and the shared responsibility for Anambra’s future.
Our critical voice and proposed solutions stem from this enduring belief. We will continue to advocate for the betterment of our state, for the success of Anambra is a collective journey we are all sworn to pursue.
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