FRI, MARCH 13 2020-theG&BJournal- As the world battles with Coronavirus, Delta Governor, Senator (Dr.) Ifeanyi Okowa, has asked Nigerians to brace up for the multiplier effects of the disease that could affect their socio-economic lives.
The governor made the call at a quarterly session with the media in Asaba on Thursday, and said that the virus had made the price of oil in the international market to tumble and had also caused many industries to stop production.
He said that unless urgent steps were taken to check the effects of disease also known as Covid-19, many states in the country may not be able to pay salaries of workers.
He prayed that the situation would not be as it was in 2015 when the country was “technically on recession.”
Okowa said, “now that we have mass production of oil which constitutes our economy, mostly due to the fact that our oil is not being sold and oil prices have also gone down, it is obvious that each and every one of us, our states and the nation will have challenges even with execution of budgets for the year.
“At the federal level, a committee has already been set up to look into the issue of the reconsideration of the benchmark and that benchmark that will be eventually arrived at will impact on us.
“We have to be able to wait for the Federal Government to arrive at a new benchmark on the price of oil, because it is that figure that we as states will use in considering the likely revenue allocation we will be getting in the remaining months of the year.
“So, there is no doubt that our budget is likely going to be threatened and we know that any part of the threat affects more of the infrastructural development which our people desperately yearn for.’’
Meanwhile, Completion date for the completion of the new Central Secretariat in Asaba has been shifted by two months, from March to July, 2020, the state governor, Senator (Dr.) Ifeanyi Okowa.
Okowa, who inspected the project on Thursday, told newsmen that out of 40 Chinese workers expected to handle special aspects of the project at the site, 20 could not leave their country before the outbreak of the virus.
According to him, the project billed for completion in May will now be completed in July.
“I am pleased with the level of work being done at the site, obviously we are delayed but we have gotten the explanation from the contractors who said they work on Saturdays and Sundays.
“I am happy with the quality of the work; it is perfect and we are hoping and praying that they would be able to gain time and finish on time and we are having a shift of the completion date now to July.
“We were thinking that the project would be completed at the end of May, but we are now looking at July.
“It is obvious because, we have been told by the contractors that they were expecting more Chinese but because of the issues surrounding Coronavirus, they were unable to bring the last set of 20 people.
“So, it is only the initial 20 that came that are involved in the work and it is obviously slowing them down.
“We understand that it is an issue that is health-related and we cannot afford to force them to do something that is not in the best interest of our country, but we look forward to the July completion date.
“From what we have seen, we are very satisfied with the quality of work, quality of materials, even the quality of the lifts; six of the lifts have already been installed in various parts and they are working perfectly well.
“I had to use one of them and I can testify that it is of best quality,’’ he explained.
The governor pointed out that the secretariat was huge structure, saying it several times bigger that the two existing secretariats in the capital city.
“It’s a secretariat that occupies a little over 50,000 square meters; from the information at my disposal, it is huge and we believe that it is going to likely accommodate every Ministry, Departments and Agency.
“It is unfortunate that after several years of existence of this state, we are still operating from over 100 different offices located in different parts of Asaba which does not give room for coordination, relationships and of course for us to save time.
“A lot of man-hour is lost in communication between the ministries in terms of people trying to move files from one place to the other but truly, you can find that we have wholesomeness and we can have shared facilities with this secretariat and that’s why we sited it here,” he said.
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