Date: 2016-09-19

Dr. Muideen Akorede Is The Senior Special Assistant (Media And Communication) To Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed Of Kwara State. In This Interview With BIODUN OYELEYE, He Explains Some Current Issues In The State.

NULGE has threatened to drag the state government to court over the operations of the Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC), what step are you taking to address the issue?

I am surprised because NULGE and labour generally have been close to the government not because of anything but because the government recognises them as major stakeholders in the state and relates with them as such. Any time labour has issue with government, the governor sees them personally and explains situations to them, so I am surprised that NULGE could take that route of threatening court action.

Secondly, we are a very transparent government, we are probably the only state that allows labour unions to take part in JAAC meetings but because of the governor's commitment to transparency he said they should be allowed. So in the last meeting, NULGE was there, NUT was there, JNC, NLC was there.

Now let me tell you what happened. There was a N180 million augmentation, after all the money had been shared. Before that it was decided that in line with statutory provision the salary of basic education teachers in form of allocation to SUBEB should be made a first line charge and you know that money was N1.2 billion but still it was short so everyone there including the chairmen of the Local government councils, their treasurers, officials of the ministry of finance and local government chieftaincy affairs and community development agreed to concede 10 percent of the state IGR which admittedly is supposed to be shared by the 16 local governments to the teachers in order to push their money towards that N1.2 billion.

It was that agreement that pushed their allocation to N1.1 billion for that month. When the time now came for the N180 million augmentation, the meeting agreed that the available fund was lower than the previous month and that pensioners were being shortchanged again.

The amount allocated to them was N109 million out of N300 million so they agreed that another N59 million out of that N180 million should go to pensioners. This is local government chairmen agreeing to do this. Previously they had agreed to share allocation on the basis of equity instead of indices as recommended by the law and this was how local government workers were able to get at least one month salary last month for the first time in this year, leaving the pensioners in the lurch. So, it was agreed that the pensioners should be prioritised this month and give them this money and the local governments will go and share the remaining N120 million. That was the issue and they said ‘okay, you are going to give this to pensioners, you chairmen tell us how would you pay us’. How else were they supposed to pay you? The allocation is there, everyone saw the figures and as at that meeting there was about 60 percent shortfall in the figure required to pay those local government before the N120 million. So I really don’t understand what they meant by saying they will take Kwara state government to court over the operation of JAAC, which is a creation of law and is enshrined in the constitution. The constitution does not recognise, as far as I am aware, the local government as a distinct and separate tier of government; it says Nigeria shall be composed of the Federal Government and the 36 states and that is why local government funds are routed through the state governments and that is why when the money comes, the Commissioner for Finance sits down with all the local governments and they decide how the money is to be spent.

The 'joint' in that JAAC is not a joint between the state and the local governments but among the 16 local governments. NULGE also made a point about the budget support scheme which they said government should have used to augment their salaries. Number one; there is no provision in this year's budget for the government to do that. Number two, when the federal government gave that support, they never said anything about local governments.

They only said budget support scheme, realising that states would not be able achieve and implement the budget so this support is meant to augment the capacity of the states and it is a loan which is collaterised against future excess crude earnings and so just because other states which are run directly by the state governments have decided to do that, you don't expect us in Kwara state which has elected executive local government chairmen in place to do that.

The day that we have sole administrators in the local governments, if you need a pin in each of the local government, you can come to governor Ahmed and say give me a pin but until we have that you don’t expect the state to use its fund to augment local government funding without appropriation. Is it true that some companies have left Kwara over taxation?

That is not true. The company being mentioned is Tuyil Pharmaceutical, but I can tell you that Tuyil is happy to operate in Kwara State, its businesses are flourishing and they will continue to flourish. The only tax KIRS has collected from Tuyil this year is PAYEE which is paid by every employer in every part of the country. And which state will Tuyil run to that it will not pay taxes? A neighbouring state shut down a federal airport because of tax and another shut down a federal university because of tax.

In any case the story is not true. When somebody posted it on social media and it was going round, the governor called the chairman of Tuyil and the man just dismissed the matter. Let me also speak about Coca-Cola. That company too didn't leave Kwarra because of tax, it left because of reorganisation of its operations in the face of current economic situation.

It has a major operation in Ibadan and didn't feel they need another major operation here so it downgraded here to storage and logistic and localised plant operation in Ibadan. And before they took that plan they came to the governor and explained themselves. The governor was concerned about job cuts but they assure him they would absorb their people in Ibadan. All the rumours about taxation are all parts of tax resistance and it is common everywhere all over the world but the KIRS has been doing a wonderful job.

Kwara will clock the golden mark soon. What brand is government projecting for the state at such an age?

There is a committee that will be given the task on 'Kwara at 50' but that committee has not been constituted, so a decision has not been taken. However, you will notice that the governor has been speaking of Kwara as the new frontier of prosperity in the North Central and that is where we are going independently of what the committee might be recommending.

This is where you have the best hospitals in the whole of the zone, this where you have the gateway to the whole of the North and the South of Nigeria. This where you have the most organised agricultural business sector in the country, this is where you have privatised tourism opportunities, this is where you have some of the highest number of academic institutions in a state in the whole of the country, this is where you have a lot of commerce, where you have the best infrastructure in the whole of the North Central.

And before the end of this 'tenure people will begin to see Kwara in that light. That is the aspiration and that is where the governor is going and part of this is human capital development. So we want a situation whereby when you hear the name of a Kwaran, you see someone who is well educated, who is entrepreneurial, who is very cosmopolitan in outlook who is very skilled etc, and that brand will be visible in our people. The aspiration of this governor is to create a new set of entrepreneurs who will drive the revival of the middle class in Kwara. As the man in charge, what is the fate of state owned media in the face of the current economic challenges?

When I took over we discovered that the equipment needed to be upgraded but also that the working environment was not suitable enough. So what the governor approved was a renovation and re-modelling plan for all three of them. We started with Radio Kwara and Kwara TV because the challenges of The Herald are easier to solve. At the moment we are at 50 percent completion.

When the issue of funding challenge began, the governor said we should prioritise the payment of salary. But now things are looking up so next week we shall go back. Equipment buying will also start before the end of this year. The governor wants to future-proof these media houses against future developments, so whatever equipment they may need to meet emerging developments in the sector will be provided.

We are starting for digitalisation in 2017, we will have new staff, new studio. For Radio Kwara we are going to migrate the station from AM to FM because most people are moving to the FM band. If you have a phone now you are not likely to have an AM band on it. The Herald will be repositioned to become the most influential newspaper in the North Central region.

It is difficult to compete nationally so we are going to provide a niche as a regional newspaper. We just appointed a new editor who is going to implement the governor's vision for repositioning the newspaper to be self-sufficient and rebrand it as a paper the people are proud of. We hope that by the end of this year, we are going to have about 70-80 percent completion. There is problem of funding but I have the governor's commitment to that.

How profitable are these enterprises?

The plan is that once these organisations are funded and equipped with the human and capital resources they require we are going to stop funding them. They are expected to raise at the minimum their own cost and then contribute money to government coffers. You look at local radio stations here, some of them have only 20 staff and they make money. Radio Kwara has 201 and with technology you don’t need that many people to run a radio station. Herald has about 82; Kwara TV has more than 60.

There won’t be job cuts because people will be move around in the service so that we have a lean but efficient workforce. They will be able to be self sufficient and take care of themselves. At least Kwara TV has shown that despite its challenges and we are going to benchmark their salaries against private sector. We have heard so much about the asphalt plant for the state, when would it actually become operational?

The plant should be ready for commissioning in the next two weeks and when that happens, the governor will flag it off. The Ministry of Works has listed all the roads that needed attention in the state, not only in Ilorin. Four roads would be taken in a particular area in a particular day and they will cut the roads, do the drainage within that week.

On the same day different groups will go and fix roads and like that move to another set of roads. That is the plan and apart from that we also have an asphalt paver which has just been acquired and we expect that before the end of this month all the roads that the people have been complaining about would have been done.

What does it take to communicate at a challenging time like this?

I think the starting point is respect for the audience, in this case the people and being very upfront and honest with them. The administration from the onset had a willingness to be transparent and accountable with the people.

It started very early with a retreat in Lagos which was attended by government officials, private sector operatives, international organisations etc to formulate the new direction for the government and that culminated in the Medium terms Sectoral strategy which drove budgeting and focus of the Abdulfatah administration for the first four years. So essentially that MTSS also dovetailed into the shared prosperity agenda which was a distilled version of the MTSSS. The governor came up with it that we need to have something that people can relate to, that can resonate with the people and prosperity is what everybody aspires to; whether financial, spiritual whatever, prosperity is progress and everybody wants progress and that drove what government was doing to a large extent and people understood where the government was going, what has been done and what was going to be done. If you notice there was a lot of emphasis on what has been done and what was to be done consistently in everything we did.

So that has been the approach from inception and that has been the approach even now. Like you said it is a difficult time but the governor has always insisted that we should let the people know what is happening. Let people know our finances. I make bold to say that we are probably one of the most transparent states in the country.

I don't see other states in the country that discloses details of its allocations. I don't, I am not aware. But here we publish details of our allocations as it comes from Abuja and JAAC allocations are also published so that people will know what money is available and what is it being used for.

The second advantage is that governor Ahmed is a strong brand; intellectually he is sound, he has integrity that people can relate to, he is liked and people support his administration and that link is there that can then be built on to let people know that the governor feels your pain, he is concerned about bringing development to the state but he's handicapped by the financial situation.

The third point is that we don't just talk about problems but we also talk about possible solutions. So you talk about drop in allocation but you also talk about what the government is doing to get the state out of the financial crisis. So there is something for people to aspire towards because if you just communicate problem and you don't cite solution or your prescription on the way out, then you leave the people informed but disenchanted or afraid about their future.

But when you outline where you are going, which governor Ahmed administration does consistently, it becomes easier. And finally, the governor has always said he wants high levels of advocacy on what the government has done, is doing and intends to do.

So he came up with The Governor Explains where he interacts with the people on a monthly basis on radio and television. We have Town Hall Meetings; they are not peculiar with us but they are held here regularly either at the party level or at the general society level. There is also now the State of the State Forum where he meets with stakeholders on issues of the state. He just met with Muslim clerics and it will now be the turn of Christian leaders and from there other stakeholders and professionals.