Okowa has shown fairness in governance – Ochor

Hon Ochor Christopher Ochor, a former member, Delta State House of Assembly and Executive Director, DESOPADEC in this interview with Saturday Vanguard speaks on his new assignment as a member of the Board, the mission of the new commission to fulfil the dreams of the oil producing areas and how the commission will be managed. Excerpts:

In this new boards, what is the place of the Executive Director, Social Services in the day to day running of the commission? By the new structure of DESOPADEC, my position in the New DESSOPADEC, is managerial. The commission now has a managing director, and four executive directors, all members of the Board, along with a chairman and Commissioners representing the various ethnic nationalities within the oil producing communities.

In the Directorates, we have:

The Directorate of Finance
The Directorate of Research and Statistics
The Directorate of Infrastructure, and
The Directorate of Social Services.

The Directorate of Social Services, which I am privileged to be the executive director, has many functions, which can be compared with the function of the management of groups of departments or ministries. This directorate is saddled with functions of overseeing the commission’s involvement in the area of health, education, agriculture, environment, youth development, women and child development, etc.

How will this new board ensure that the people in the oil producing communities get their due, taking into consideration the past experiences of the communities and lack of attention from the commission?

The members of the new board know the yearnings and complaints of the people, and the agitations of the people gave rise to the new DESOPADEC Bill which was the first bill, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa sent to the State House of Assembly immediately he was sworn-in as the Executive Governor of Delta State.

At the swearing in, he clearly stated his direction on the commission, which is the designing, re-designing the structure, tailoring it towards the delivery format of the Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC), that is a management structure, and satisfying the expectation of the communities, which was tagged “The Bottom Up” approach.

This specifically means that issues and projects are going to be developed from the communities to the commission, for the commission to execute. These will be the way to satisfy the expectation and yearnings of the people. Based on these, I am charged up, to give the best to the people, by being focussed, have a listening ear so that we can capable meet the needs of the communities and state.

One of the bad experiences the commission had been accused of is the issue of festival gifts, which often results to bad feelings among the people of the host communities. Your section was in charge of this, are we going to see the same pattern of service?

One of the mandates of this commission is to work to build a credible commission that will serve the needs of the people, and remove hardship and difficult experiences from them. The past experience of gift of any kind to the people that will not bring a satisfying result is not what we intend doing. As we all know, the government had said that the state is running a tight budgetary management now and the commission being part of the state cannot say otherwise.

Yes, there may be such gifts, but I am assuring you that this board will do all that is possible to ensure equity in doing so, but when it comes to issues like this, we are already thinking of the less privileges in these communities. We want to give them attention, as our attention and approach will go deep down to the real people.

How is the new board, specifically your Directorate hope to deliver on these promises, with the present financial state of Delta, based on drop in oil revenue?

We have decided to look at the budget and look at the very relevant projects. We are going to think towards investment, which is diversifying the investment so that profits generated from these investments will be what we can carry on with. Again we must look at the relevance of each project to the need of the community. Don’t forget we are talking of “Bottom Up” approach.

To a larger extent, we will answer to the relevance of every project based on availability of funds. The board had been concerned and we have been doing something about it. Excessiveness have been cut-off, relevance is measured, approach is redirected, and to a large extent, the result is going to be optimal.

What can you say about the Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa led government?

This government has been outstanding. This can be seen in the first action of presenting four bills to the state House of Assembly immediately he was sworn in. In the appointments, it has all the LGAs, well represented. Okowa has shown fairness in governance to all sections of the state in his appointments, let us forget the criticisms. This government has shown a remarkable sportsmanship in all areas.

The government and the DESOPADEC commission need prayers of Deltans to overcome the financial stress.

This government met a huge debts, bonds that were to expire last June, and the governor had to re-negotiate the deals to extend time of payment. Many things will be achieved by this government, what I will ask of Deltans, especially the oil producing communities is to be patient with the government and the commission, there should be quality criticisms and a lot of prayers.