Governor Benedict Ayade of Cross River State, a former senator, a professor of environmental studies was in Lagos for an interactive session with relevant stakeholders involved in the forthcoming Calabar Festival. On the sidelines of the meeting the governor had an interactive session with newsmen during which he opened up on his style and strategic approach to governance. Excerpts:
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
On how he is approaching the tough economic challenges
Well the economy is slowing down and so government is supposed to downsize, reduce the number of ministries, cut down allowances and salaries, but that is really not the right way to go. Economics teaches us that it is as such times that governments that are socially sensitive are supposed to expand. At this period of cash crunch is when I have increased the number of ministries from 18 to 28.
So, I am now increasing the number of commissioners, this is because as more young people get unemployed, as the cash crunch bites harder, what happens is that when people have no alternative to survival, then the survivalist instinct which pushes them to criminality begins to manifest and then you have social tension and so, you spend more on security which distracts from spending on productive assets and so you are just going round the clock.
In America today, when things get really tough like that, government puts more money on people’s pay checks, increases their pay checks for them to increase consumption.
Governor Ben Ayade
At this time of cash crunch is when people are supposed to consume more. So for our own government we will expand within the limits of what is financially possible to expand government to increase consumption and that is why Cross River State is going to have a very high number of appointees at the political level. They don’t add up to the risk and cost of leaving them unemployed. If you know what it takes for you to be a commissioner and then after four years you leave office for nothing.
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