Government of Anambra State has announced plans to extend the removal of illegal structures defacing the environment and endangering lives beyond Onitsha in the coming weeks.
This was part of resolutions at the Anambra State Executive Council Meeting held at Government House, Awka.
According to a Post-ANSEC release by the Commissioner for Information, Sir Paul Nwosu, “It has come to the attention of ANSEC that the lands of many community secondary and primary schools have been massively encroached on by some communities and developers.”
He pointed out that it is unacceptable and government is seriously looking to recover these portions of land adding that as part of measures to achieve this within the ambits of the law, government is seeking to quickly amend land laws so that land grabbing will be criminalized.
The Commissioner further noted that as a responsive government, ANSEC has set up a committee to review payment claims by contractors of the previous administration to ascertain if the contracts were awarded in line with due process, if they were completed or not, among others before payments would be considered.
Members of the committee include Finance Commissioner as Chairman of the Committee, Accountant General, Department of Public Procurement, General Manager, Commissioners for Works, Housing and Power. They have till September to complete their work.
Sir Nwosu further explained that having discovered that some native doctors provide charms with which gunmen operate, it has become necessary to enumerate and register them as practitioners, categorised into herbalists and spiritualists.
“While government appreciates the fact that some of them add value to health care, it is also not unaware that they have helped to imbue these criminals with the dare-devil confidence that has driven them into committing despicable crimes as kidnapping, extortion of ransom, beheading, etc. Where they are found culpable in such crimes, it will be easy to fish them out from the register”.
Also at ANSEC, a Revenue Committee was constituted comprising the Chairman of Anambra Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Richard Madiebo, Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Dr. Obinna Ngonadi, Special Adviser, Medicals and Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Godwin Nnadozie as well as Managing Director, Information Communication Technology Agency, Mr. Chukwuemeka Agbata.
The Commissioner said that their responsibility is to disaggregate the various revenue waste management through the demand notices issued in order to determine where greater effort would be channeled.
He revealed that following the last teachers’ Computer Based Test, a total of 6,250 candidates have been shortlisted. They include: 3,250 for Primary School and 3,000 for Secondary School stressing that the oral interviews have been scheduled to commence on the 27th of July, 2022 and will last for two weeks.
“The interviews which will come in batches will hold at Igwebuike Grammar School Awka; St John of God Secondary School, Awka and ASUBEB, Awka”, he added.
Highpoint of the ANSEC meeting was presentation of a souvenir from the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, His Excellency, Cui Jianchun to Governor Chukwuma Soludo through the Commissioner for Culture, Entertainment and Tourism, Chief Don Onyenji.
The souvenir serves as a token of friendship in preparation for the envoy’s visit to Anambra state later in October when the plan to set up a Cultural Centre in the state would be concluded.
Photo: Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo, the executive Governor of Anambra State.
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