Agency For Urban Renewal Soon In Rivers

Rivers State Governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Amaechi, has hinted of plans by the state government to establish an Urban Beautification and Renewal Agency (RSUBRA).
He, however, said the agency, if established, would be independently driven and managed, pointing out that the current Gardens and Parks Department fell short of carrying out an effective urban beautification drive due to excessive bureaucracy and lack of expertise.
Speaking at a two-day sensitisation and three-week training exercise for 2014 pre-budget orientation workshop for public servants organised by the state Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning last Wednesday in Port Harcourt, Amaechi observed that the Gardens and Parks Department could not meet the current challenge of urban beautification.
He recalled that the unit was established by the Chief Ada-George administration in 1992 as a way of engaging the womenfolk in sanitation and maintaining some of the city’s recreational centres.
Amaechi stressed the need to overhaul the department by making it an agency and privately driven.
The governor also underscored the need for each ministry to have a budget monitoring unit as a way of dealing with bottlenecks in budget implementation in the different ministries and parastatals.
He said, “there is no success of government without budget monitoring and evaluation’’.
The governor challenged civil servants to insist on due process in their ministries, warning that his administration would no longer condone public officials that contravene government’s appropriation laws.
Amaechi assured that henceforth, his administration would ensure that all allocations to different sectors were released.
“We will try as much as possible to ensure that money does not reside in Government House, but in the different Ministries, Departments and Agencies,” he added.