By Adadareporters
The governor of Enugu State, Peter Mbah, Saturday, said his government allocated one-third of the state budget to education because the standard of any country is determined by its quality of education.
Gov Peter Mbah stated this during a town-hall meeting he hosted at the Old Governor’s Lodge, Enugu. According to him, the goal is for the future of children of the state.
Quoting him, “Education is the best gift any society can give its children. Our smart schools have begun the demonstration. Students at our smart schools are already used to technology, and becoming problem-solvers. It’s all about our children’s future. It is true that we have not built the structures across the state, but we are on track.
“Contractors handling those projects across all our wards have been paid, and we monitor them. We target that by September next year, every child in the state would have access to our smart schools. We target training 11,000 smart teachers by June next year. We are migrating from the old ways of learning to experiential learning. It is more expensive than putting the structures. We shall have artificial intelligence lab, science and technology lab, e-libraries, among others.”
On security, the governor said the state had deployed state-of-the-arts technologies to check crimes across the state.
In his words, “Before we came in, it was as if sit-at-home were normalized. But we have refused to validate the actions of criminal gangs. We have planted measures and technologies for a round-the-clock surveillance to swiftly respond to threats to insecurity. We are determined to bring justice to criminals that break the laws.
“We are virtually at the point of launching the state command and security control centre. It means kissing goodbye to insecurity in the state. Our CCTV cameras are equipped beyond humans. It will start in a matter of weeks. Businesses cannot absorb insecurity.
“We commend the tireless efforts of our security agencies for their commitment to ensure that Enugu is safe. Some of them pay the ultimate price for our safety.”
On potable water in the state metropolis, Gov Mbah said though a lot had been achieved towards making potable water available to all parts of the city, many challenges were still hampering the targeted success.
Quoting him, “We have not gotten where we want fully. We are on track. The problem of replacing obsolete pipes has been a major issue. It is ongoing. Our recent MOU with an Austrian firm which is injecting $1m will give us hope.
“On assumption of office, we also had challenges with water storage and generation. Consumption is over eighty million litres daily, but we had just around two million litres’ capacity then.
“But we were able to improve from two million to 120 million litres daily. We also tackled transmission and storage. But the obsolete tertiary pipes gave us more challenges. We are already at the last lap. We are fortunate to have got investors to inject $1m into the scheme. It will start in January. It is not loan. They will also provide metres.”
On the fear expressed that the investors would exploit the consumers, Mbah assured that, “It is not a money-making venture. We have built-in safety nets to ensure that our people are not exploited. It will be charged at a minimal cost. In all, our people will have a guaranteed water supply. Once you turn your tap, there should be water.”
