With the December 8 primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party coming so close, aspirants for the office of the governor are making their declarations and networking the Ad Hoc delegates for support. In this interview with journalists in his country home in Onicha Ugbo, Aniocha Local Government, Delta State, one of the leading aspirants, Prof. Sylvester Monye insists that he has all that it takes to step up Delta

At your declaration you talked about increasing the present IGR from 15% to about 40%, how can you achieve this without increasing tax?

First of all if you look at the states that are making it in terms of economic development, there are about three states namely Lagos, Rivers and Ogun States, Lagos State alone makes an excess of N200 billion from IGR which Delta State is making between 15% to 18% per annum while collecting N150 billion from the federation account every year.

We are at the rate of N36 billion on IGR, meaning that Delta State is already improving. The state is now paying attention to IGR. We now have a revenue house. What is happening is that we are paying more attention to IGR.

It does not necessarily mean that you will increase taxation. It simply means that you are making the issues of accountability to go with responsibility. When you talk about responsibility, you must talk about responsibility.

The reason why people do not question their government and the management of their resources is because they do not pay tax and if you do not pay tax, your right to demand for what rightly belongs to you is impaired.

So, what we are saying is that we are going to run an administration that enables people to question the quality of utilisation of their resources I want to run, a system that gives you the opportunity as an indigene of Delta State to say I don’t like what you are doing because that is not what I paid tax for.

In other parts of the world you talk about tax payers money you don’t spend the tax payers money anyhow. You do not use the tax payers money to buy private jet, travel and live in comfort while the tax payers are in penury. So, these are some of the responsibilities that you bring into governance.

It becomes your right to query what the government is doing if the money is not effectively deployed.

So, it is very important for you to balance responsibility and accountability. That is what I want to do. Now, in terms of raising the IGR base, there are a lot of leakages. People do not pay taxes, whether it is income tax or value added tax or indeed any type of tax. Even when they pay, the collecting agencies keep the money. So, we have to reverse that trend in our IGR system. To do that even with out tax increase will push up our IGR.

Some people regard you as being too Elitist

I don’t think it is correct to say that I am Elitist, you were at my declaration and you saw the turn out which was massive.

If you listened to the speeches from these who gave solidarity speeches, it shows simply that I am the man the people want to relate with. It is not a case of not being in contact with the grass roots if your definition of grass root is that I am not living in Asaba or in Onicha-Ugbo, I will agree with you because I leave in Abuja where I work but whenever I am in Delta State, I am connected to the people and to the system.

So, I am coming here to live and work with the people and asking them to give me their support to enable me do the work that I have done elsewhere for them.

So, the question of not being connected to the grass roots is not correct. If not being connected to the grass roots is because you have never contested election then there is a misunderstanding between a member of House of Assembly who contests election regularly and a technocrat or technocratic politician like me who works in government but also has a foothold on the ground.

There are views that your are an aspirant riding with the backing of the president, how true is this

well, am not the only one from Abuja who is in this contest. The reason why I am running is simply because I am the best prepared aspirant, it is as simple as that anybody who tells you that somebody asked him to contest any election is not worthy for that office. You must want to contest an election because you believe that you have something to offer to the people. The issue of somebody being the presidency candidate does not arise because if you become the presidency’s choice and you are elected into the office, is the president coming to run the office for you. We need to consider not those whoa re backing me. I put myself forward because I am patriotic I have the training and the capacity to occupy the office of the governor if I am elected today the state will better for it I am not anybody’s candidate. Nobody has asked to come out into the race.

I want to contest and work for the people of the state I declared because having consultanting with everybody that mattered in Delta State.

The response has been phenomenal it has given me a lot of pleasure. Even when opposition parties come to me, they say we know you belong to the PDP, but we like you to be the governor of this state.

What policies frame work would you bring to the table if you become the governor?

Two things. The first one is the issue of understanding that government is a continuum. There is the need for, any aspirant, continuity. If you listened to my declaration statement. I said I will respect the integrity of any commitment that has been entered into by the current administration and in doing so, because having worked as special adviser on performance Monitoring & Evaluation, I have discovered something that is unfortunate for us as a people. We have about 6000 abandoned project all over the country.

Every new administration wants start its own project and in the end, you have several abandoned projects littered all over the place. So, one thing I will do will be to ensure continuity on the solid foundation that has been land.

Secondly, I will run an all inclusive government. One of the biggest challenge that we have in Nigeria today is that people do not recognised the importance of inclusiveness in government. If you engage everyone to participate in decision-making, when you begin to implement what has been agreed on there will criticise you or frustrate you, because they were part of the decision making process. In this way, everybody will understand why certain decisions must be taken. But if you come in with the attitude that you know what is best for the people, that will be a recipe for disaster.

The third thing that I will do is to bring on board knowledge and understanding of the mechanics of government. I will not be a Governor who will come in and spend the next six months or one year, learning the art of governance. I have worked at the centre of government for 15 years in that period, I was the executive secretary of National Planning Commission for five years and for 3 ½ years, I have been Special Adviser to the President on Performance Monitoring and Evaluation. I have been a member of the economic management team as well as economic implementation team I am in a position to take Delta State forward without necessarily having to go through a learning period. I will hit the ground running from day one.

Would you accept the concept of consensus candidate

I did not enter this race to talk about consensus candidature. I entered the race because I know I have what it takes to beat everybody. So, I am working according to my work plan which is to go to the primaries and emerge the winner I am not working to become a consensus candidate but to win the December 8, 2014 primaries.