Industrialist and former Abia Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu has dropped his two cents on the reasons Governors never have enough money for salaries.
Speaking to State House Correspondents at Aso Rock after a closed door meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Kalu said huge amounts budgeted and disbursed as security votes in addition to copious sums spent on foreign travels were major culprits militating against governors paying wages to civil servants.
His words:
`Most of these governors are doing very well and some of them also are living in the euphoria of the office.
“You can see most of them who are very active.
“The issue of crying for fund, honestly, in my opinion, these governors have enough fund to work for Nigeria and then to work for their people because if you check, the money drawn as security vote is excessive.
“They should stop that.
“Unless they stop drawing on security vote they will not have enough funds to work with and
most of them are living in absolute luxury, which is not their money that they worked out for.
“So it is impossible to continue living in this manner.’’
The former governor accused some state governors of spending a lot of on “needless trips’’.
He urged the governors to stay in their various states and work for the people.
“Most of the governors are even living in Abuja now, they don’t even live in the states.
“If you look at the books very well, in each trip they make they will take travelling allowance of N35 million, which is un-heard of.
“What are you going to do with that? So how are we going to progress? Not all the governors.
“I have gone through Rivers, I see that Rivers is hitting the ground; I have gone through Adamawa and I see Adamawa is hitting the ground.
“I have gone through few more states, they are hitting the ground; they are working.
“I don’t speak with sentiments; I don’t speak for anybody; you can see those who are working and those who are not working.
“Let them sit down and do the job for which they are elected.’’
Kalu, an industrialist, also called on the Federal Government to provide the concussive environment for the private sector to thrive.
According to him, the private sector will need government’s guarantees and access to credit.
“We need power to be able to revamp the economy. The economy should not be lived only by crude oil.
“We can produce a lot of things and export, we can also do farming and we still can do our mineral resources and we need to diversify, that is the key.’’
The former governor said some of his colleagues made sacrifices when they contested to serve the people.
“When people see people like us who have been governors, we made a lot of sacrifices in going to sit down there, because I can make much more money than sitting down there for eight years.
“It was a sacrifice that was worth doing for our people. It was done to improve education, healthcare and other services.’’