By Tony Okafor, Awka
The Senator representing Anambra Central Senatorial District,Chief Victor Umeh has distributed over 124 metric tons of rice to his constituents.
The distribution which took place on Thursday at St Andrew’s Catholic Church, Adazi Nnukwu, in the Anaocha Local Government Area of the state was fashioned in such a way that the sharing would trickle down to all the wards in the seven Local Government Areas of the Senatorial District.
The seven Local Government Areas are Anaocha, Njikoka, Dunukofia, Awka North, Awka South, Idemili North and Idemili South.
Addressing the representatives of the local government areas/wards,Umeh said the rice palliatives were Federal Government/National Assembly pallatives programme; emergency supply of food items during the Christmas but the contract came late and therefore was not executed and government did not give money to the contractors.
The Senator who was elected on the platform of Labour Party (LP) thanked his constituents for electing him in the 2023 general elections, reassuring them of effective representation in the National Assembly.
He counselled that the palliatives were not only for LP members, but for the poor in the constituency.
He debunked insinuations in some quarters that he was given cash of N200m or N450m for such palliatives.
” I was not given SHISHI by anybody for this and no Senator was given any such money by the Federal Government,” Umeh stated.
While thanking the Federal Government for the rice palliatives, he urged government to go beyond such palliatives and invest the money available in restarting the economy of Ñigeria.
He said, ” I welcome the palliatives because I can feel the pulse of the people having been here( Anambra) for one month now with the people. They need food; the need succour. These palliatives are very little temporary measure.
“It goes no long way in solving the hardship in Nigeria. That’s why I’m saying the government should go beyond these palliatives and invest the money available in restarting the economy of Ñigeria. Let the government tackle the distress in the economy.
“Yesterday(Thursday), one dollar exchanged for N1330. These are the things muzzling this economy down and hardship is everywhere; inflation has reached about 28 percent; it is going to be the highest in the past 27 years.
“So if you read this things you will know that the economy is in distress, so pallatives are good but they are very temporary measures.
” The government should look for ways of engaging people,creating employment and giving people the opportunity to put their hands in productive ventures instead of giving someone rice which they will eat and continue to complain.
“So government should go beyond the pallatives and restructure the economy of Nigeria; that is what I think should be done.
Continuing, Umeh said, This is a Federal government National Assembly pallatives programme; emergency supply of pallative, food items during the Christmas but the contract came late; it was not executed and government did not give money to the contractors.
“The condition is that if you ( contractors) are able to supply you come and put your claim and the government will pay you so it is very difficult to execute but because the contractor that was given Anambra Central Senatorial District could source money and I discussed with him, I said come and buy this rice from Anambra State; don’t go and bring it from outside.
The senator said all the rice distributed to his constituents in the district were from Anambra State.
He said, “The producers are in Anambra State so it took us about few weeks to get it ready and today it’s being distributed, that is why the representative of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security that awarded the contract is on ground today( Thursday) to see what we have done.
” Like I said, it is 124 metric tons of rice, which is 124,000 kilogrammes of rice. What we have here on ground is 129,000 kilogrammes of rice; so we surpass by 5000 kilogrammes according to the contract .
“Despise that, last Christmas I shared 626 bags of 50kg rice and about 600 bags of 25kg rice and marched it with some cash support to the people of Anambra Central as my own pallatives and as a Senator I spent over N40m million in that exercise in addition to what government has done.
“So, this program is good but it does not solve the problem to be sincere with you, Government have to go beyond this; create employment and job opportunities for the citizens.
Describing palliatives as consumption economy, Umeh said,”We need to go and put more hands in agriculture.
” Government should put money on productive activities so that people will be self-employed and be in a position to recycle income that will sustain them, what we’re doing with this pallatives is purely consumption because anybody you give this rice, will eat it and become hungry after one week or two weeks, the problem continues so government should try and bring money to put people into productive activities.
“Small and medium scale enterprises are very important. Government should engage our youths; let them go and start doing things.
“The conditional cash transfer programme as you can see is already marred by corruption and controversy so people are lining up to share money, it will not help us out.
“Let’s us put these billions of naira to select people and use it on productive activities.”
Umeh promised his constituency that he would relaunch his education scheme to give scholarships to no fewer than 200 students of his constituency from March.
Umeh who said 76 university students in his scholarship scheme recently had all graduated, stated that he had trained no fewer than 400 persons in similar circumstances
