Good Governance: Okowa Seeks Workers’ Contribution

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, says the request for good governance must come from the generality of the people, particularly the workers.
The governor stated this, at the National Union of Civil Engineering, Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers’s 5th National Quadrennial Delegates Conference last Thursday, in Asaba.
He said  that, the conference theme “Economic Woes, What Strategies for Nigeria and Trade Unions” was apt, particularly now that people had lost their purchasing power and prices of goods and services gone out of reach.
Okowa, challenged the workers to think out things that could make government policies work and find ways of advising the politicians on the best ways such would profit the generality of the people.
He also charged labour unions to partner with government to develop the economy and encouraged workers to be committed to work and to increase their productivity.
Okowa said that, proper mechanism must be put in place to check incompetence in workforce, particularly with the construction and building industry, giving the sensitive nature of the sector.
He said that, for the country to harness its potential and liberate the nation from its economic woes, government economic development framework must be people-oriented and people-driven.
“Actually, good governance itself should come from the workforce, we can engineer good governance by resolving among ourselves that we will resist bad governance whenever it comes to play.
“Our workers must be committed in their work and be proactive, we cannot continue to live in the past.’’ he said.
The governor said that, the long-term dependent on oil revenue as a nation was the challenge.
He said that developing other sectors like agriculture, solid minerals, among others, would put the country back on recovery part.
“This is because whenever there is fluctuation in the price of oil, there is always a huge challenge in Nigeria.
“In the last two years now, the price of crude oil has been down and that is why we are witnessing the kind of economy we have now.
“We do not have immediate solutions, but we have to suffer the pains of today as we plan into the future to save us from further consequences.
“We must look into the financial sector. The energy sector is a great problem which we must address for the industries to come back in the scale which they can impact positively on our nation,’’ he said.
Ayuba Wabba, President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in a goodwill message, said labour must continue to canvass for good governance predicated on transparency, respect for rule of law and accountability to the people.
He said the challenges the country was passing through were because those ingredients of good governance were lacking and had not actually been respected.
“That is why we have canvassed that for us to realise our economic goals we must get those tenets of development and good governance right,’’ Wabba said.