By PATRICK ABANG, Calabar –
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Cross River State, Mr. Bobby Ekpeyong, has said previous democratic administrations in Cross River incurred huge public debts despite selling public assets.
Ekpenyong, who is also the Special Adviser to the Cross River State Governor on Obudu Cattle Ranch, said Cross River had not made any meaningful progress before the administration of Professor Ben Ayade.
He commended Professor Ayade for changing the landscape of the state with his intellectuality, moving the state forward and building industries despite the huge debt burden.
“Professor Ben Ayade, the Governor of the state for the past seven years has shown a different type of leadership from what we have known in the past.
“We have been in a very usual leadership style where its all about politics, grading of roads, tarring roads or building a school and stuff like that around the state without a broad vision.
“If you look at Cross River State post military era and also what we have achieved during this democratic dispensation we have not had any meaningful achievement in the state before Ayade came.
“During the south Eastern state where Cross River state was part of, we had critical assets that this state was generating revenue from and also taking a chunk of our youths to work in them.
“We had the oil palm estates in Akamkpa, Biase and Boki, we had the rubber estates in Akamkpa, Yakurr, Biase, we had the Calcemco which is now Larfarge, we had the cocoa plantations spread across three LGAs. These were things that took a lot of our population out of the labour market. These estates and plantations gave us huge revenue.
“Before the Ayade administration, the past administrations sold off every critical asset that we had in the state.
“If you have an industry and you want to change a business model, do you sell an industry that is not producing money and use the money to go and build stadium where football matches will be played how much will you make from it that is what we have had in cross river state.
“We lost our industries because we could not run them but if you are selling why don’t you retain a stake so that you can still be generating revenue.
“Ayade came in as governor of the state but before he came in, we sold all these critical assets and then depended on federation account as the main source of income for the state.
“Because you have sold these critical assets your revenue will surely fall and our internally generated revenue fell drastically because we were no more in control of the things that used to give us revenue even if they were run by individuals.
“What did Donald Duke ad Liyel Imoke administration use the money for? Rather the past administration collected huge loans for infrastructure development that none are working today. Over 400 billion naira was collected where are the things they used the money to do.
“Ayade came in and with the pains of paying loans taken by the previous government still has the intellectuality to generate money and run the state and then building industries in al the local government areas of the state”, he said.
Ekpenyong who is a leading aspirant for Calabar Municipality/Odukpani Federal constituency, maintained that the governor may not complete all these industries but 90% of these industries have been completed and the State Privatization Council will bring in investors who will now come and invest, run and employ indigenes and then we still retain a stake in these industries.
He said the Ayade government has done much for the state in the area of industrialization but the benefits of these industries will not be seen during the lifetime of the administration but after his administration we are going to appreciate it.
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