Governor Rochas Okorocha has made no pretence about his thrust of his government in Imo State with a stern promise to the people to expect harder times from him this second term. According to him, he would tax the people more and to make good his promise he has inaugurated more task forces in a state already militarized by various task forces some of them armed.
The governor, during the inauguration of various local government and state task force teams on rural assessment and development at the Imo Chamber of Commerce hall, Owerri, the state capital, told the people of the state that government would be strict in implementing all its policies in the state.
The task force teams have three months to complete their assignments.
According to him, water borehole owners, both private and commercial, must be made to pay more taxes as the state moves to privatize the state water cooperation.
It would be recalled that the governor had in his first term taxed borehole owners to pay N100,000 as registration fee even when the state’s water board was not pumping water to residents. This was implemented through the ministry of public utilities, but was stoutly resisted by residents.
This time, the governor said that every drop of water consumed henceforth from the water board must be paid for by residents and that those who decided to sink boreholes will have to pay more.
Among other things, Okorocha also empowered a committee on illegal parking of vehicle to impound any vehicle wrongly parked within the state capital and convert same to loading refuse or donate it to Nigeria Prisons where necessary.
This, he said, will include commercial vehicles loading in unapproved parks, adding that he would set up mobile courts to immediately try anyone whose vehicle would be impounded.
The essence of this, the governor said, was to ensure a free flow of vehicular traffic within the state capital, Owerri and other major cities within the state.
He disclosed that after setting up the mobile court, street traders including those setting up shops in unapproved places within the state capital, would be arrested and hounded to prison.
Okorocha also told the people of the state that within the three time frame, the committee on drainages would ensure that all drains within the state capital and other parts of the state would be cleaned by residents of the particular streets.
As a result of this, the governor pronounced that environmental sanitation would now be held two times a month and that any street where drains are found dirty, its residents would pay penalty for it.
He also directed that every shop owner or house owner in the state will be expected to cast its frontage with stones and cement to look neat and that failure to do that would that by any shop or house owner, the committee would seal such defaulting shops and houses pending when they pay penalty and do the needful.
Other committees, according to the governor’s terms of reference, will get the list of unemployed graduates and under graduates from each community with a view to planning for their jobs among other references.
