A’Ibom S/govt to privatise coconut refinery

The state commissioner for information and strategy, Mr Ini Ememobong  who disclosed this to newsmen, explained that the governor being a financial expert adopted that model so that the companies could in turn give dividends to the government.

Speaking after a project tour in the state, the commissioner  who admitted that the government is not a good business manager. noted that Ibom Air as well as the Ibom Icon hotels were privately run and bringing a lot of dividends to the state.

He said the process has injected life into the economy of the state saying that such would be replicated in the newly inaugurated coconut refinery.

“There is no fear of how to properly manage those businesses as the governor has shown great example with the way Ibom Airline is being run. Though owned by the government, it is run like a private enterprise.

“Same thing is applicable to Ibom Icon Hotel. The management and the board are dominated by private business people and every six months they come to the executive council meeting to give an update on their activities. The state is getting a dividend from them.”

Ememobong said the governor in attempts to create jobs for the teeming youths engaged humans to perform some tasks, machines can do in some of the industries noting that the refinery crushes about one million nuts daily.

“With mechanization introduced to industrialization, His Excellency consciously designed a human interface into it, some things machines can handle, His Excellency employed the youths to be doing them so as to engage them.

“The principle of the private sector is what we use in running all our endeavors, level of equity in Ibom Air is purely government, fully owned by the government but run privately; we don’t have government interference unless where very necessary.”

On education, he noted that Gov Emmanuel in an attempt not to have distorted development in education declared an emergency where he convened an education summit that set up a think tank which came up with a ten year road map.

He noted that the state government made the road map non partisan such that members of the opposition party and other stakeholders in the education sector were among the thinktank that drew the ten year road map.

The Commissioner who added that the governor has been consistent in the payment of WAEC fees which runs in tune of over N800 Million said the Akwa Ibom State University has full accreditation with a fully digitized studio for the communications department.

“All our schools of nursing and health technology before lost their accreditation but now have regained their accreditation, and are prepared to produce their graduates.” He said