Ever since President Bola Tinubu announced the disbursement of five billion naira palliatives to the states, there has been something akin to a stampede by the states to dole out to the people the prescribed items to be procured. While this had been going on, few uniformed public affairs commentators have made a show of displaying an unusual interest in how Anambra State’s palliatives would be managed. Despite their jaundiced commentaries and insinuations, Governor Chukwuma Soludo has remained focused in fore-thinking how well to deliver a more diverse package that would be of better impact to the living conditions of the very low income earners. A well-thought-through programme for maximum impact will significantly mitigate their economic hardship over a sustainable period of time.
Just like the Good Book states in Matthew 4:4: “Man shall not live by bread alone…”, Governor Soludo rightly believes that our people shall not live by palliatives’ rice and maize alone. Beyond these food items which would be consumed and passed out as wastes over time, there are other departments of living that could be rejigged to support the low income earners to wade through the current economic challenges.
Even so, it is crucial to quickly clarify that out of the N5 billion announced by Mr President to be given to States, it is only two billion naira that has so far been released which are partly as loan of which the States are expected to pay back forty-eight percent while the Federal Government will pay the remaining fifty-two percent.
As things stand, States have been mandated to mainly use this money to procure bags of rice, maize and similar food items to be distributed among the people. To this end, Governor Soludo plans to distribute bags of rice to 300,000 households across the 326 wards in the state.
However, months before the President’s initiative on palliative measures, Governor Soludo had predicted increase in the cost of living and immediately undertook to increase the salaries of public servants in the state government and local governments by ten percent from January 2023. With the President’s formal proclamation of the palliatives’ regime, Governor Soludo in his typical approach to such economic issues dug deeper to come up with more fundamental solutions beyond rice and maize to better shield Anambra people from the turbulent whirlwind that is exerting unusual pressure on the systems. He immediately placed pensioners and public servants on non-taxable cash award of N12,000 monthly from September to December 2023.
The game-changer is of course the tax exemption to vulnerable groups which include hawkers, Okada drivers, wheelbarrow and cart pushers, vulcanizers, artisans and petty traders with less than N100,000 capital.
Another welfare measure taken by Professor Soludo is the declaration of complete free education in public nursery, primary and junior secondary schools. The fees for public senior secondary schools were slashed down to N5,000 per session.
As if that was not enough, the Governor also made antenatal care and child delivery services free in all the government’s General Hospitals and Primary Healthcare Centres in Anambra State. To ensure that quality services are rendered to these women, special telephone lines have been set up for these women to call in case they are not satisfied with the standard of services or care they received.
Government has also awarded the contract for the supply and installation of modern laboratory equipment in all the 326 Primary Health Centres across the State. Modern Tele-medicine Hub and Spoke System have also been established in Anambra State. Governor Soludo has in the last few months, under the “One youth, two skills” programme, trained 5000 youths in 20 different skills, and bank cheques will be doled out to them any moment from now to enable them set up their own businesses.
In addition to the 5,000 teachers already hired by this administration, Governor Soludo is looking forward to hire 3,000 more teachers to reinvigorate the quality of Anambra State public schools.
The renovation and repair of civil servants’ staff buses are ongoing. Governor Soludo plans to introduce Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)-fuelled buses to reduce Intra-State transportation costs.
Anambra State Palliative drive has a touch of Mr. Solution. The essence is to make it sustainable over a long period of time.
Written by SIR PAUL NWOSU
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