Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, today inaugurated three committees for the state’s development plan, contracts verification and review, as well as public service reforms.
He stated that the committees were necessitated by the need to get things done in the right and sustainable way as well as to also verify further the debt profile of the state.
The inauguration ceremony was held at the new Banquet Hall of the Benue Peoples House.
Governor Ortom subdivided the development plan committee into two and assigned steering and technical roles to it.
“The steering committee is, as the name implies, to act as the governance and advisory committee which is to ensure that this project is delivered in good time and does not suffer any bottlenecks or hiccups,” he stated.
“The technical committee is to go down to work on the details of the development plan ensuring that the framework, policy thrust, strategies, timeliness and other aspects are tidily put together.”
According to him, any society that wanted to achieve development by leaps and bounds must have a clearly defined vision document for achieving those aspirations.
“We look forward to a development plan that will excite the patriotic zeal of our people and automatically inspire buy-in and ownership as well as earn the respect, confidence, and interest of our development partners and potential investors,” he stressed.
Governor Ortom stated that the preliminary figures of N18 billion for certified contracts and N50 billion for ongoing ones was baffling hence the need to verify and possibly review the authenticity of the figures.
He explained that the contracts verification and review panel, just like the judicial commission of inquiry and that of assets verification were based on the people’s demand to know why the state has been brought to its kneels and the brink.
“It’s important to note that the public service reforms initiative constitute a major plank of the reform agenda of this administration and it is expected that at the end of the committee’s assignment it will come up with the most frontal and far-reaching recommendations for the reform of the service,”Governor Ortom stressed.
Each of the committees was assigned specific terms of reference.