Abia State governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu on Thursday, said the actions he had taken to sanitize the system of governance has begun to yield positive results as N160 million has been saved through the biometric staff verification exercise.
He disclosed this in a state broadcast to mark the 24th anniversary of the creation of Abia, saying that the recovered money was “hitherto being lost through payment to ghost workers and other manipulation of the system.”

The governor, who is barely three months in office, acknowledged that some of the measures adopted by his administration to sanitise and strengthen the system might be causing in conveniences to some people.

Citing the rigorous verification exercise that workers and pensioners were being subjected to, Ikpeazu called for their understanding, assuring that once the process was concluded “our administration shall not owe any worker in Abia State their due entitlements.”

He gave insight into the direction his administration has been moving over the three months since he mounted the saddle of leadership, saying that “we have had to compartmentalise the impact we intend to make into the three broad categories of short term, medium term and long term interventions.”

Ikpeazu reminded Abians that the journey to a better Abia State requires our collective efforts and not something that should be left to government alone.
He therefore made passionate appeal to the people of Abia to cooperate with his administration and join hands to make the state great in line with the “dreams of our founding fathers.”

He noted that despite the enormous challenges and trials that the state had waded through since its creation, “we have made landmark strides in human and material infrastructure” though a lot still needed to be done.

“I will be the first to admit that we are not yet where we hoped we would be but I will also insist that we are not where we used to be. It is a progressive journey and I call for all hands to be on deck as we march on,” he said.

Governor Ikpeazu said that  his administration has “identified the things we need to do to get us to where we want to go and we are resolute that the Abia state we will bequeath to our children will be far better than the Abia State we inherited from our parents.”