OWERRI — THE 2005 Imo State budget has been described as "principally geared towards making the environment conducive for the assimilation of the employable but unemployed graduates of tertiary institutions." The Deputy Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly, Chief Chuma Nnaji, who stated this in an interview with Vanguard in Owerri, also pointed out that the previous budgets merely placed a lot of emphasis on the education of Imo children and educational institutions."
"The products of this previous policy are coming out and the 2005 budget is geared towards creating employment environment for them, through sound partnership with the organised private sector. This partnership is by way of encouraging a lot of inflow of investment into the state," Nnaji said. While branding the 2005 budget as "budget of empowerment," especially as it intends to empower all shades of people, including the physically handicapped persons, the Deputy Speaker also said that it is at otal budget.
Asked to mention how the 2005 would make the state investor friendly, Nnaji explained that "some of the micro-economic problems would be addressed by the budget," stressing that "such problems include infrastructures, good road network, easy accessibility to land and the provision of highly well baked manpower." The Deputy Speaker said the state government was not contemplating going into the generation of electricity for distribution to the citizenry, but quickly added that if there was such a plan, he was not aware of it.
"I do not think there is any plan by government for the establishment of an alternative source of public power supply in the state. Let me quickly add that if there is such a plan, it is not to my knowledge,"Chief Nnaji said. Although he said that "it would not be a bad idea if the state establishes a private electricity generating plant like the one President Olusegun Obasanjo commissioned in Rivers State recently," Nnaji however, regretted that "no private investor has ever come up with the idea.
"On the possibility of government building one, I can say that it would have been an ideal thing but it is not feasible for now. It is a capital intensive project. It is not possible for government to go into private power generation because of the lean resources of the state," the Deputy Speaker reasoned.
