Akpabio tasks FG to merge parastatals for easy management

The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill O. Akpabio, has called on the Federal Government to merge some of its parastatals in the country as a means of making it less cumbersome to manage them.
Akpabio, who made the call on Thursday when the Comptroller-General, Nigeria Immigration Services, Mrs. Rose Chinyere Uzoma, paid him a courtesy visit at Governor’s Office, Uyo, argued that Federal Government has many responsibilities and there was need to reduce such weight.
He remarked: ”Already, we have too many federal parastatals in the country.
“It is cumbersome.
“And there is the need for the Federal Government to merge the federal parastatals to reduce weight for a stable administration.
“There is also need to unbundle the system and give more responsibilities to the state and local governments, particularly the funding of primary education.”
The governor further called for slicing of monthly allocation given to the Federal Government and the money be added to state governments’ to assist them undertake meaningful development projects in their areas, adding: “There is need to reduce money given to Federal Government and such be given to the state government to undertake the necessary development required for the country.”
Welcoming the Comptroller-General to the state, Akpabio said: “Your visit is an eye opener and you have brought in a lot of motherly touch to the immigration service, making the officials of the service to put their best in their duties.
“You have done tremendously well in the Immigration Services, where you stop our children and girls from being trafficked.
“You have managed the borders well to check those smuggling arms.
“If immigration did not check well, there would have been incursion of more terrorists into the country.
“In Akwa Ibom State, we are building a sustainable development in the state and that is seen through the various infrastructure witnessed in the state.
“For we must sit back to assess ourselves by putting infrastructure in place.
“Because if we don’t have a transformational leadership, what type of future are we setting up for our children?
“So, there is need for collaborative efforts for Akwa Ibom Government to partner the Nigeria Immigration Services.”
On the request by the service for means of transportation, the governor donated two Hilux vehicles for their security patrol and pledged to provide patrol boats for the services and the Nigerian Navy in assisting them to secure the waterways against upsurge of piracy and crude oil theft.
Commenting on request for land, he directed the Commissioner for Lands and Survey to assist in the allocation of land to the service for the building of an Immigration office and barracks for its officers in the state.
However, Akpabio promised to consult the state Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General on whether to appoint or not the state Comptroller of Immigration as a member of the state Security Council.
Speaking earlier, Mrs. Uzoma had said her visit was to thank Governor Akpabio for carrying the immigration services along in his administration by providing them with vehicles and repairing the collapsed jetty in Oron, stressing that without the jetty, they would not be able to handle repatriation of illegal immigrants and traffickers of women and children.
Uzoma announced plans by the service to relocate the biggest training school in the North to Akwa Ibom State, which would be a world-class training school where officials of ECOWAS would be coming for training and appealed to Akpabio to provide them with land for this.