By Ijeoma Ndubisi/Kingsley Okoye/Fumilayo Adeyemi
Abia Government says it has developed healthcare prepaid cards to meet the health needs of citizens irrespective of status and location in the state.
Called “Tele-Health Initiative’’ the state governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, announced while featuring on News Agency Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja that the product was ready and would be launched in a few weeks.
“I want to say to Nigerians that in Abia we are going to launch in a few weeks times, our Tele-Health Initiative, Dial a Doc Initiative.
“It is a prepaid card that gives you access to a medical doctor irrespective of where you are and who you are.
“It will be useful and handy for our students, for our aged parents and indeed, for everybody.
“And, it will deepen health care delivery service because we have successfully linked our Primary Health Care Centres to a call centre where doctors are prepared to speak in vernacular.
“You have a choice to either speak to a female or male doctor.
“That is where we are today in health in Abia,” he said.
The governor also said that the government was harnessing the revenue potential of other sectors of the state’s economy to ensure that no resource area was untapped.
According to him, the state has a huge limestone deposit in Arochukwu that can service cement factories in the country.
Ikpeazu further said that the “Long Juju’’ site also in Arochukwu could serve as a tourist attraction, adding that his administration was developing road infrastructure for easy access to such resources across the state.
“Apart from the Long Juju in Arochukwu for tourism, there is huge limestone deposit in Arochukwu that can sustain the biggest cement factory in this country.
“First, you must create a short route to Arochukwu and we are doing that through the bridge that we built called Okobo Bridge.
“We need to create easy and shorter routes to Arochukwu from the state capital before we can talk of tourism.
“Our strategy is to first of all maximise the revenue potential that we have in our area of strength which is leather, garment and fabrication,” he said.
Toward this, the governor said that the state would launch its first automated shoe factory in August, to complement the manual shoe-making process in the state.
The Governor also said that his administration targeted a N2 billion Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and about N1 billion wage bill, stressing that prevalence of ghost workers had contributed to the exorbitant wage bill in the past.
He noted that the Wage bill was about 2.8 billion in 2015.
“The syndrome of ghost workers has both political and economic dimension; if you allow ghost workers, they are the people who stand under the tree and continue to say `we no go gree’.
“They are elements that should be thrown away; they are the people who do fraud with payment vouchers.
“They are people who instigate others, create all kinds of problems within the system as well as undermine whatever plan you are doing.
“We see the wage issue in Abia state from the angle of Wage Bill Management; it’s not payment of salary.
“Workers’ Wage Management means only those who are working get paid and negotiation must be with those who are working.
“But we are now trying to install devices in offices where you can clock in with your finger print and clock out because some people are not even ready to put two hours honest day job on their duty.
“A worker is entitled to his wage; is it not when he works?
“The wage bill is about N2.1 billion now and we know that it can get to N1.7 billion if we continue on this trajectory.”
The governor said that the state was utilising the Bank Verification Numbers of workers in the state to ensure that ghost workers were delisted from the payroll.
He said he had given 100 per cent of his second tranche Paris refund to workers in the state to show his commitment to reward for labour.
He also refuted claims that the state owed workers salaries, adding that the state was working to close the gaps in the salaries of Primary School Teachers.
Ikpeazu also said that his administration was working assiduously to improve the IGR of the state to complement revenue from the Federal Government for sustainable development.
“The strategy for economic development of any state today is that you must grow your IGR with your right hand and force down your overheads with your left hand.
“That is what we are trying to do.
“Our IGR is not static, it fluctuates; in my time it has gone beyond N1 billion at times and at times it has fallen below N700 million.
“It keeps fluctuating but we have arrived at a point where I think we can target N2 billion as IGR in Abia state and achieve it.
“Ultimately people believe that Abia can make N5
billion and I share that optimism but that hasn’t happened yet,’’ he said.
