Ugwuanyi Sets Up Committee For Economic Potentials Revival

Members of Ndiagu Uwani Akpugo Community of Enugu State, protesting alleged imposition of an Igwe on the community in Enugu recently.

The Governor of Enugu
State, Mr Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, on Saturday inaugurated a 15-member committee to revive the economic potential of the state.
Inaugurating the committee in Enugu, Ugwuanyi told the body to reinvent the potential of the state to make it possible for governance to thrive.
He said his administration had entrusted revival of the state’s economy to the body, known as the Enugu State Economic Advisory Committee.
Ugwuanyi said the state was faced with economic difficulties and challenges that had affected lives and other activities.
“These challenges are the direct fallout of developments in the oil sector and it is evident from the onset that we need to find help from outside while we tackle other issues of governance.
“This informed our decision to constitute this advisory committee to entrust it with the task of helping us reinvigorate the economy of the state.”
Ugwuanyi said the committee was entrusted with the task of finding viable ways of promoting investment drive to create employment in the state.
He appealed to the committee to develop a template for ensuring increased internally generated revenue.
“In essence, we are placing the economic fortunes of the state squarely on the shoulders of this committee,” he said.
The governor said that the committee was made up of eminent professionals, captains of industry and technocrats.
He, however, appealed to them to use their vast contacts and expertise for the benefit of residents of the state.
“We enjoin all well-meaning residents of our state to approach them with information and advice as it is our collective responsibility to salvage the economy of our state,’’ Ugwuanyi said.
The Chairman of the committee, Msgr. Obiora Ike, said it was a great honour to be chosen to chart a common course for people of the state.
“It is time for us to stop begging, fighting and moaning. “A new time has presented itself for us to evolve and take our destinies into our hands. “The actual situation of our people suggests that poverty is real among us but at times we feel this poverty should not have had space among us. “We can still remember that it is on record that the state fed the entire country between 1909 and 1960,” he said.
According to him, successive governments in the state have tried similar moves to reinvent the economy of the state to no avail.
He said that 50,000 jobs could be made available to the people on the strength of the advice of the committee within the next nine months.
Ike advised that residents of the state should be ready to embrace new challenges and new ways of doing things in the days ahead.
Some members of the committee include Deputy Senate President Sen. Ike Ekweremadu, a former Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, among others.