By Adesina Soyooye
Angry, and embarrassed by the deluge of complaints he is inundated with everyday, Imo state Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma, has sacked officials of the Imo State Environmental Transformation Commission (ENTRACO) from the state’s roads and streets.
Sacking them on Wednesday, the Governor also directed the Police to arrest and prosecute any of the Commission’s officials seen anywhere, operating along the roads demanding anything from, or harassing motorists.
The Governor’s directive comes as a breath of fresh air to the people of the State whose lives have been made hell on earth by officials of the Commission. “It is bound to be one of his best decisions in office,” said a Clergyman who has been harrassed many times by ENTRACO officials. “It is sweet music to ears of Imolites” he added.
The decision was reached after Wednesday’s State Executive Council meeting.
Briefing newsmen, the Commissioner for Information, Chief Declan Emelumba noted that the government had received numerous complaints from members of the public on the nuisance which persons who claim to be officials of ENTRACO constitute to motorists on the roads and streets of Owerri and its environs.
The Commissioner could not have been more right. Derisively called “Imo State Commission for Agbero”, they were meant to bring decency and civility to the roads and streets. But they turned out to be the ugly side of the Uzodinma Government, defied every corrections, and almost becoming a government of its own.
Flanked by his colleagues in Works, Barr. Raph Nwosu and Transport, Barr. Rex Anunobi, and the Chief Press Secretary/Media Adviser to the Governor, Oguwike Nwachuku, Emelumba further disclosed that Governor Hope Uzoodimma got commendation for roads he commissioned in Owerri municipality last week.
“Council noted that in the history of the state, no governor had awarded road contracts of the nature Governor Uzodimma awarded and got them completed and commissioned within such a short period of time,” the Commissioners said.
Emelumba informed that the commissioner for transport was directed to incorporate members of the civil guard into his proposed transport management template to be called Imo State Traffic Management Agency pending the completion of the legal framework that will spell out the modus operandi of the agency and its personnel.
In another vein, the commissioner for works was directed to revoke the contract of the Naze-Ihiagwa-Obinze road and to urgently re-award it to a more committed contractor because of the strategic importance of the road so as to stop the hardship the original contractor had subjected the users of the road to since he got the contract.
The banks, he said, have been urged to recover the mobilization fee paid to the contractor handling the now revoked Naze-Ihiagwa-Obinze road.
