Politics
ENUGU state governorship candidate of Labour Party (LP), Mr Chijioke Edeoga, says it will amount to political mischief for anybody to try to associate his governorship with the performance of the state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
He told newsmen in Abuja on Sunday that although he served in Ugwuanyi’s administration for seven years as Commissioner for Local Government and Environment respectively, he operated within the mandate given to his office by the governor.
Edeoga, said that many of those who complain about the sanitation in Enugu metropolis failed to understand that waste disposal did not fall within the purview of the Ministry of Environment.
He said that for the less than four years he served as Commissioner of Environment, there was no time the governor saddled his ministry with the task of clearing the refuse in the state capital.
“Each ministry has a mandate written out by the office of the Head of Service telling you in very clear terms what your responsibilities are.
“The responsibility of the Commissioner for Environment in Enugu State has never been about waste evacuation.
“Waste evacuation is the sole preserve of the Enugu State Waste Management Agency (ESWAMA).
“That is the body responsible officially and by law for waste evacuation in Enugu state.
“As Commissioner for Environment, I never submitted any quotation, I never was expected to supervise waste evacuation and I never did, because it was not my remit.
“It is the remit of ESWAMA. It is the remit of a special taskforce on environment drawn from the office of the governor.
“If anybody said I have anything to do with waste evacuation, the person should publish a single document of approval done to me as commissioner in my time with regards to waste evacuation.
“I maintain that it was not my remit, but the work of ESWAMA by law,” Edeoga said.
He further argued that if the law had put him in charge of waste evacuation or monies were released in fulfilment of those desires, he would have delivered on that efficiently as he did in all other places, where he had worked.
“As Commissioner of Environment, as Council Chairman, as Presidential Adviser, I have done very well.
“I have received recommendations everywhere I have served, even as a journalist I have received recommendations from the best brains in the land.
“Even President Goodluck Jonathan wrote me a letter of commendation for a work well done in four years.
“So, I am a performer, I will not be shy or too humble to say that I performed exceedingly well anywhere I served.
“So, if I was in charge of waste evacuation and monies were released for that to me, I would have done them to be better than it is now,” he said.
In the area of local government administration, Edeoga said he discovered that the system was being mismanaged in the sense that substantially welfarist dimension has been added to the idea of local government service.
“They just keep on employing people without regards to what those people ought to do or should do.
“So, people are employed for the sake of receiving salaries, not for the sake of being located at the focal points, where their services are being needed.
“So, for instance, in the local government system, you have well over a thousand persons who are in the administrative cadre, what are they doing in the administrative cadre.
“Why won’t more people be relocated for instance in agricultural sector, to be involved in actual farming, involved in mechanised farming, where they are involved in cooperatives, where poultry or different kinds of farming go on,” he said. (NAN)
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Tags: Chijioke Edeoga ESWAMA Goodluck Jonathan Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi Labour Party
