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| Joseph Coco-Bassey |
As the battle for the soul of Cross River State begins to take different shape with various political parties shopping for votes from the Cross River electorates, the Gubernatorial candidate of the Young Progressives Party, YPP, Comrade Joseph Coco-Bassey has identified 5 major gaps created the current administration that must be fixed by his administration when voted into office.
Coco-Bassey who penned this down in what should be best described as his manifesto, a 26 paged document tagged "THE RENAISSANCE 2023". Where he painstakingly outlined the challenges currently bedeviling the state and outlined step by step approach towards solving them.
According to the Akpabuyo born gubernatorial hopeful prominent among the gaps that has put the state backwards is an "Unfocused Leadership" stating that the current crop of leadership in the state have lost touch with the people & that's why the administration is given to humongous projects that are not people oriented but mere conduit pipes to embezzle the state's meager resources.
He further lamented a situation where an administration could not produce a single industry that is functional and financially productive after 8 years of governance but have allocated huge sum of the people's resources to these projects. But will rather be leaving huge debt burden behind"
"Government policies towards the well-being of the citizens have not been translated to measurable outcomes. Our public service system has unarguably collapsed considering the level of unproductiveness enabled by lack of training, capacity building and failure to take cognizance of workers' welfare. Commercial activities have lost grounds due to poor incentives and high taxation.
Cross River State currently is one of the top six most indebted States from a cumulative assessment of N163.16 billion domestic and $192.5 foreign debts. Our debt to GDP ratio is unarguably one of the highest in comity of States and our human development indexes on the average of 0.551.
These are largely due to:
1. Unfocused leadership characterized by lack of capacity;
2. Low competence and character;
3. Political leadership composition with little or no understanding of social challenges;
4. Wild and unproductive spending on projects and programmes that have no bearing with the human development;
5. Poor inclusiveness and development approaches have maintained a posture which relegates those who needs development the most in planning and limited participation opportunities.
The resultant effects of these have been the alarming rates of unemployment and underemployment in the State which has maintained a steady double digit high of 71.46% because of the failure of leadership enveloped in lack of creativity. This in turn leaves a bleak future that needs urgent rectification." The document reads in part.
The youthful energetic standard bearer of the Young Progressives Party, in an exclusive conversation with TDN, when confronted with some items in this manifestos said when given the opportunity to serve Cross River State, he will change the narrative by first appointing round pegs into round holes and will not use appointments as a tool for political settlement or compensation as the present leadership is doing.
The 26 paged document outlined 13 sectors of the economy which the Coco-Bassey's led administration will bring reforms into all in a bid to give Cross Riverians a touch of what good governance is all about.
This paper is committed to bring this your way in our subsequent publications.
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