RIVERS State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, has given hints that his administration would focus on consolidation of the projects he started in his first tenure in office.During the flags-off of his re-election campaign at the Corpus Christi Cathedral, Port Harcourt, the governor explained that his target was not to build structures alone, but also to consolidate on the sustainability of the projects he had started.I will run the next four years of consolidation in Education, Power, Security, Transportation and Agriculture, which has capacity to provide jobs for our people. School building in itself cannot guarantee quality education, but emphasis would be placed on qualified teachers that would impact the right knowledge to the students, he said.The major policy thrust of the Amaechi administration has been to improve living and working conditions as well as the quality of the workforce, through rapid infrastructural development. And in keeping with this mandate, his critical areas of focus are roads and bridges, education, health, agriculture, water and urban renewal.To stem the tide of poverty, the governor, in his first term, decided to return to the basics through the provision of basic, compulsory and qualitative education, and good healthcare delivery.Presently, the administration is building an unprecedented 700 state-of-the-art primary schools, 24 secondary schools and two universities, all at various stages of completion.The governor recently observed that his achievement in education in the past three years would contribute to the reduction of crime in the state, while quality healthcare delivery would reduce poverty.Amaechi would, within the next four years, be striving to complete the remaining 60 out of the 160 new health centres he started in all 23 local government areas of the state and other secondary and tertiary healthcare institutions.Though Rivers State was created in May 1967, it had roughly 1,000 kilometres of road network as at when the Amaechi administration assumed office. Most of the riverine communities were inaccessible by because of a lack of bridges and roads. In the hinterland, however, though there existed some roads, but rough unmade roads in most parts of the state made travel a hazardous undertaking.But in realisation that todays economic growth and wellbeing of a people depend upon a suitable road network, the government has built additional 700 kilometres of roads and several new normal bridges to the hitherto network. This remarkable achievement has distinguishes the administration as one that has constructed more roads in the history of the state.For a state that is in dire need of critical infrastructure needed todrive its development, Amaechi, in the last three years, has invested a minimum of N100 billion yearly on roads/bridges/infrastructure. And according to the governor, thistrend would be sustained because an efficient road system is needed to drive our administrations economic agenda.For instance, the Rumuola-Rumuokota and Slaughter to Rumuobikani, has been completed with streetlights, drainage and walkways.As part of effort to ease traffic on the busy Aba-Port Harcourt expressway, there is an ongoing dualization of the Old Aba road starting from the First Bank junction through Rumumasi to Rumuobiakani.Similarly, Elekahia to Rumumasi road has been dualised. Already, contract has been awarded for the dualisation of Ada George road. Total reconstruction and upgrade of G.U Ake road that starts from Aba road parallel to the Air Force Base to Airport Road, has commenced.And with the return of the 86 oil wells ceded to Akwa-Ibom and an anticipated refund of all the proceeds from these wells that were illegally paid to Akwa-Ibom, the government is expected to vigorously pursue its statewide urban renewal programme and development of infrastructure, chief of which is the Greater Port Harcourt project.The Greater Port Harcourt is a new city that covers an area of approximately 1,900 square kilometres (190,000 hectares of land) with a projected population of two million. The Master Plan is for a period of 50 years, with periodic reviews, and would be implemented in phases.In addition, it is expected that the governor would expeditiouslymove to complete the Rainbow Town housing estate, which he started in collaboration with First Bank. The N50 billion housing project comprises 17 high-rise buildings, offices, and residential buildings in 705 building units spread across 24 hectares of land.Others area that the governor would be focusing on include provision of critical utilities such as electricity and water, strengthening government institutions and improving competencies and capacity in the public service for good governance and service delivery with support from international development partners and local institutions.An analysis of the capital expenditure in key sectors of the states economy is quite revealing of what lies ahead. For the passage of the 2011 Budget by the state legislature, the government had budgeted for Works N60 billion; Education N67.92 billion; Power N12.500 billion; Sports N10.553 billion; Health N17 billion; Water N6.9 billion; Agriculture N3.065 billion; Housing N0.810 billion; Transport N10.2 billion; and Environment N2.9 billion.Last year, the government successfully started the construction work for our monorail project. So far, N11billion has been spent on this project while N24.934 billion was spent in the power sub-sector as at November last year, to enable the government effectively pursue its rural electrification project.Governor Amaechi recently said that his vision was to make Rivers State the preferred destination in which to live and do business in Nigeria.According to him, we are changing our economic direction so as to create a robust economy that will meet the challenges of our present reality. While building on our natural strengths of oil and gas, we shall return to Agriculture. We are also making deliberate efforts to be the technology hub of Nigeria.
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