I’ll cut wasteful spending – Obaseki

The  Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has vowed to cut unwarranted expenditure as part of efforts to run a transparent government and free up resources.

Obaseki also assured the people that his administration would neither involve itself in frivolity nor play to the gallery while  implementing government policies and programmes.

The governor, who stated this while addressing participants at the end of a three-day strategy dialogue with permanent secretaries, the political class and members of the civil society in Benin, on Saturday, also promised to strengthen efforts in revenue collection, through a friendly tax policy.

He said, “I will cut wastefulness and unwarranted expenditure through efforts at running a transparent, accountable and prudent government to free up resources to enable the implementation of most of the projects identified by the participants at the workshop.”

He noted that he would, in the next six weeks, prioritise the implementation of each of the recommendation made by the six thematic groups identified in the workshop, adding that those who would make up his cabinet and other government agencies would be appraised.

According to him, the critical consensus of the resource persons at the three-day evnt included the need to invest in data collections, planning, enforcement of established government laws and the implementation and execution of government policies and programmes.

Obaseki explained, “Our promise from the beginning was that we are going to stop and desist from a situation where contractors and service providers will be the one defining government agenda and policies.

“Over the next six weeks, we now need to galvanise each of those thematic areas. So, we will have sessions like this, focusing on specific things and bringing them down to actionable steps.”

He continued, “So, we will now decide which programmes, what do we have the money for, when we are to get what done, the timelines and who will be responsible.

“And this will be done before commissioners and other political appointees are made. We will know the requirements before we appoint people and, after appointing them, we will have specific deliverables for them to achieve.”