Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State has announced an interim response to cushion the effects of the recent fuel subsidy removal and attendant current economic hardship on the people of the state.
President Bola Tinubu in his inauguration speech on May 29 announced the end of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise called petrol, a policy that pushed the pump price of the product from around N190 to about N620 per litre.
In his broadcast on Monday, Soludo announced that in response to the rising inflation, “our government had increased the salaries of all public servants by 10% effective January 2023. We have been paying the 10% adjustment since January 2023”.
He said, “In addition to the salary increase, we will be paying every pensioner and public servant in the employment of the Anambra State Government and the 21 LGAs (approx. 59,000 persons) for the period September 2023 to December 2023 a monthly flat non-taxable cash award of N12,000. This is to augment their monthly take-home.
“We will continue to clear the backlog of gratuity and pension of our pensioners. Recall that we met 4-year pension and gratuity arrears when we assumed office, which we have been paying since assumption of office.
“Anambra State Government will be distributing rice to over 300,000 households in the coming weeks across the 326 wards in Anambra.”
The government also exempted the “following highly vulnerable persons” from all forms of taxation/levies: “hawkers; wheel barrow and truck pushers; vulcanizers; artisans, okada drivers; petty traders with capital of less than N100,000; etc.”
Soludo further announced, “The IGR payments of ALL transporters — Keke, Minibus, etc are hereby reduced by 20% with effect from September 01, 2023.
“Basic Education (primary school to JSS3) remains tuition free for all public schools. We are reviewing the plethora of other levies, fees, and charges in these schools. Before schools resume in September 2023, we shall make further announcements to sanitize the system and reduce the burden on our pupils/students and their sponsors.
“Henceforth, we will provide free antenatal services and free delivery services to pregnant mothers in State primary health centres and general hospitals. We will announce a more comprehensive medical package for our residents, especially the senior citizens and children in our 2024 budget.
“We call on the landlords to show empathy to their tenants at this challenging moment and consider easier options for rent payment.
The government also said it would be “applying to purchase many of the CNG-fueled buses to be provided by the Federal Government for intra-state transportation. The aim is to reduce the cost of transportation within Anambra”.
“We will embark immediately on the repair of existing and purchase of new water boats to ease transportation for our citizens in the riverine local governments,” it added.
In the medium to long term, Soludo said the government “recently distributed a total of 1.1 million oil palm and coconut high yielding seedlings to over 100,000 households.”
He continued, “We plan to sustain the distribution of one million seedlings per annum over several years in continuation of our revolution to create a new palm-coconut green/industrial ecosystem that will guarantee 500,000 – 1,000,000 households earning N1.5m to N3m per annum, thereby lifting them out of poverty, create wealth and earn foreign exchange for Nigeria. We also expect a new industrial complex to process the products, thereby creating more jobs for our youths.
“We are getting ready to deal with the heavy flooding expected to massively affect eight local governments in Anambra soon. We have made arrangements for resettlements of Ndi Anambra living in flood-prone areas. We will take every necessary measure to ameliorate the effects on the victims.
“In the next few weeks, we will be energizing our One Youth Two Skills program by providing a mix of grant and soft loan schemes at a maximum interest rate of 9% per annum through a collaborative initiative between the Anambra State Small Business Agency (ASBA) and its partner development finance institutions. This will benefit about 4,500 of our youths who have recently completed the year-long intensive trainings, and will enable them to become entrepreneurs and employers of labour. We are rolling out about N4 billion for this project.
“We are completing the set-up and funding of the Ward-based Cooperative Initiative for micro-enterprises. We are proposing a revolving loan scheme at near zero interest rate. We are targeting over 100,000 micro businesses.
“Already we employed 5,000 teachers and over 300 medical professionals within our first 9 months in office plus thousands of youths in the security sector. We understand that the teeming unemployed youths remain a potent time bomb. We are committed to recruiting further thousands of youths as teachers for our schools and road/street sweepers and engaging youths in public works.
“We are rolling out a very ambitious program to build/modernize the primary health centres (PHCs) in all the 326 wards — to let everyone have access to qualitative healthcare. This is in addition to renovation/modernization of hundreds of primary schools and secondary schools. We recently approved a huge program for urban and rural water schemes to ensure that especially the poor have access to clean portable water.
“We are constructing over 340km of roads across all the 21 local governments and we are poised to continue. We have also started repairs of some “trunk A” federal and state roads, to improve the lives of Ndi Anambra and reduce transportation cost in the State. As we enter the dry season, we will deliberately prioritize palliative works on many of our critical roads to lessen the burden on commuters and ensure more effective traffic management.”