As the people of Edo State continue to react to the recently inaugurated full complement of the Edo State Executive Council with 27 cleared commissioners and one still pending, which would be the largest in the history of the state, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Prince Kassim Afegbua has justified the new cabinet.
According to Afegbua, it would bring efficiency into governance and ensure that the policies of the Governor Monday Okpebholo get to the people of the state.
Speaking in an interview with Vanguard, yesterday, Afegbua said the administration would not compromise its campaign promises, just as he accused the Godwin Obaseki administration of running the state in unclear bases, adding that several policies and programmes of that administration remained obscured.
He said: “When people talk about the size of governance and the cost of governance, what the issue is, is not necessarily the size, it is about whether what you are doing has an impact on the wellbeing of the people.
“I think corruption is the bane of public service generally in Nigeria and elsewhere. But once we are able to cut the incidences of corruption, then you have solved the problem almost 70 percent and since the governor came on board, you live in this state, you agree with me that the man has been doing a lot of legacy projects and he has not held back contractors money.
“I think people should be looking at whether those ministries created have value that they will add to the state economy and if you ask me, they are not out of place.”
On why it took the administration almost one year to set up a full cabinet, Afegbua said though that could be attributed to political interests, the exco has been functioning but not fully constituted until now and that has not affected governance.
He said: “The cabinet was already set up. It was not full blown but it didn’t stop work. The governor has been working. They were holding exco meetings.
“Also pressure from different interest groups, political actors and all of that contributed to why the entire exco was not constituted. But that has been settled now and he has also gone a step further to create additional ministries to be able to cover a wide spectrum of the economy.”
