The Jang administration has undertaken and completed several new projects. Now, being someone who has been involved in the implementation of some of these projects, what are your proudest achievements?

When I look back at how much we have achieved, it is difficult for me to single out one particular achievement as my favourite, because they are all commendable milestones in their own right. We have advanced several sectors which hitherto were comatose and moribund, some of these dysfunctional and neglected sectors, which we have been able to improve include; the educational, health, human capital and infrastructural sectors.

I am very proud of all these unique gains/democracy dividends, because when we took charge of affairs, a lot of sectors were yearning for attention. We therefore had to come up with an action plan of how we could address those needs. Although we have been able to improve on the lives of our citizenry in several areas, a lot still needs to be done. Subsequent administrations will have to take over from where we left. However, with regards what we have achieved, I can say proudly and without equivocation that we have done our best for our dear state, given the resources and time at our disposal. It really is a privilege to be involved in critical projects such as the ones we have done, which have direct bearings on the lives of our people.

The Jang administration has undertaken and completed several new projects. Now, being someone who has been involved in the implementation of some of these projects, what are your proudest achievements?

When I look back at how much we have achieved, it is difficult for me to single out one particular achievement as my favourite, because they are all commendable milestones in their own right. We have advanced several sectors which hitherto were comatose and moribund, some of these dysfunctional and neglected sectors, which we have been able to improve include; the educational, health, human capital and infrastructural sectors.

I am very proud of all these unique gains/democracy dividends, because when we took charge of affairs, a lot of sectors were yearning for attention. We therefore had to come up with an action plan of how we could address those needs. Although we have been able to improve on the lives of our citizenry in several areas, a lot still needs to be done. Subsequent administrations will have to take over from where we left. However, with regards what we have achieved, I can say proudly and without equivocation that we have done our best for our dear state, given the resources and time at our disposal. It really is a privilege to be involved in critical projects such as the ones we have done, which have direct bearings on the lives of our people.

I must caveat the above statements, by saying that there are still outstanding projects, which are at their later stages of completion and we will not be fully satisfied until we meet our target of project delivery by 29th of May 2015. After that, we can proudly tell the people we are accountable to (i.e., Plateau citizens) that these are the projects we have been able to undertake on your behalf and then proudly hand them over.

As one of the youngest people in the administration, what programs have you facilitated that has had direct bearing on Plateau youth?

Interesting question –it was only when I was appointed and I started working with other cabinet members that I realised that I was one of the youngest persons in the team. This realisation has given me a sense of responsibility to my generation and therefore equipped me with a burning desire and an impetus to drive hard and achieve a lot on behalf of this youthful generation.

What we immediately set out to do was to look at the human capital development policy of the government, to see how we could improve the lives of the youth. So as a first step, we looked at the agricultural sector and sought out ways of establishing a sustainable programme for the youth tagged “The Agricultural Services and Training Centre” (ASTC). We reasoned that since most of the youth/people in plateau state had a farming background, it would be a fantastic idea to make farming more attractive to them. We therefore sought to encourage young farmers to move away from peasant or subsistent farming to commercial/entrepreneurial farming – i.e., where people will see farming as a business and not a subsistent practice. Hence the setting up of the ASTC –and since a high proportion of the population owned farmlands and were agrarian in nature. We organised workshops and seminars through which we sensitised and encouraged our people to go back to mechanised and high tech farming by being part of the ASTC. I am proud to say we now have been able to rekindle the farming culture in many of our young people.

Similar strides have also been made in the Information Computing and Technology (ICT) area. The achievements are again geared towards the youth. Our objective is to impart key skills and aptitudes on them through the implementation of a series projects. These projects are all driven by the youth, in conjunction with the Director General of the ICT agency. And through this, we have trained over 200 graduates in ICT and other soft skills, giving them lifelong aptitudes, which they can use and apply in different work situations. Now, since there is a plan to start up a new Plateau ICT agency, some of the trained youth from this programme will be employed as the pioneer staff of the institution. In the same vein, we have also looked at how to re-energise and upgrade our technical teaching colleges to a standard, which they are capable of impacting valuable technical skills in our youth.

In addition, we recently sent about 50 Plateau youth/students to the Air-force Training Institute in Kaduna to be trained in various aspects of aeronautic engineering. Aeronautical engineering is a high-end skill which Plateau state will immensely benefit from. The youth sent to this academy have since completed their studies with very good grades. Some of them have since been offered admission for further studies at Cranfield University in the UK –and the state government will again fund their studies at Cranfield University.

Furthermore, we sponsored approximately 100 plateau students to the Manpower-Training Institute in Abuja for the skills accusation and training programme ran by the federal government. And as such, you can see that we take advantage of every training opportunity available to us, to ensure that the interest of our citizens is properly vested. Also, we have sponsored several Plateau students to acquire new skills at the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Abuja.

To further illustrate my point about delivering value to the youth, It is common knowledge that this administration has a three-pillar policy i.e. human capital development, finance development and infrastructural development. What that means is that if we are developing infrastructure, we try to key in both youth and finance components into the projects. An example of this fact is that we started an exercise with the Board of internal revenue to increase our internally generated revenue beyond its current levels. We engaged the services of over 300 plateau graduates and ad-hoc staff, in the capacity of number crunching and numeration. And that has significantly alleviated their plight and bettered their financial positions. In the same vein, in road construction we have asked contractors to sub-contract the drainage digging and construction to young people who may not have much education but have the skill to do the manual work and this has helped them generate a source of livelihood. The whole idea is to expand the economic base of the state and to spread the wealth to everybody not just a few at the top.

You highlighted the achievements of this administration in the agricultural sector; could you tell us more about ASTC and what it has achieved so far?

Well, apart from the over 200 people that ASTC has employed both as extension, administrative and training staff, there are other experts who can provide training on state-of-the-art agricultural practices.

To shed more light about how ASTC works –a lot of young farmers work in partnership with this organisation. The partnership is in such a way that the land being used for the farming does not belong to ASTC but to the farmers. So typically, the ASTC will go to the farmer’s land, assess the soil condition, determine the size of the land, measure the water conditions etc and then carry out tests to determine what crop are best suited for the land. Following this, they would then advise the farmer accordingly about the most suitable type of crops to be planted on the land, best practices in cultivation, duration of planting, harvesting and new farming techniques etc. They also provide hybrid seeds (which are a lot more resistant to disease and provide higher yield than local ones). After the crops have been harvested, the ASTC may buy the farm produce from the owner or assist in identifying new market opportunities for them. In doing this they do not only provide farming services to the community, but they also impart lifelong skills on these young people because they support them all through the farming/cultivation life cycle.

Once an individual has acquired the needed skill, all that ASTC does, is provide them with the equipment to harrow the land and provide other mechanised services at a reduced cost. The aim of this is to train not just farmers but entrepreneurs. In fact, ASTC now has a marketing arm, which makes it possible to provide the mechanised services free of charge at the point of delivery until the farmer harvests and sells the produce to the marketing arm. The marketing arm then takes the produces, looks for sales outlets and then deducts the cost of its initial services. The introduction of the marketing arm of the ASTC ensures that middlemen are cut out of the supply chain and fairer prices are negotiated for farmers (which is a win-win situation for all).

ASTC also has adequate storage facilities which ensures that they are not under pressure to sell at any point in time and this gives them the ability to peg prices based on international demand. So ASTC basically takes a lot of burden away from the farmer. The state government has plans to start privatization of ASTC by the second quarter of next year so that farmers who are the benefactors of the program should own it not the state government. Having said that, the government will still keep 10% of the shares while it speaks to agricultural and commercial banks to provide finance and assistance to these farmers, so that they are able to buy shares in ASTC.

You recently said in an interview that the salary computerisation exercise under your chairmanship had uncovered over 5000 ghost workers in the state. Have the people responsible for defrauding the state in this manner been made to face the wrath of the law?

Well, what happened was that when the biometric exercise was undertaken, there were about 5000 people who could not be cleared because of one issue or the other. Some of these cases had to do with gross misconduct, fraudulent promotions and non-existent/ghost workers. But of course before we pass a verdict it was only fair for thorough investigation to be undertaken. Hence, what we did was to set up an appeal committee to deal with the administrative cases i.e., the disciplinary cases and fraudulent promotions. On the remainder, i.e., the purported ghost workers –we reasoned that a small number of people must have been responsible for creating them in the system and that perhaps some people at the top must have allowed that to happen. As such, we are continuing to investigate the phenomenon and our intention is that by the end of this year, we should be able to clearly sort out various cases so that the appropriate authorities like the EFCC can step in.

I must add however, that in the past, some of the culprits were apprehended and handed over to the justice department who have now handed them over to the EFCC e.g., the fellow who fraudulently created a commissioner’s portfolio and was drawing down the salaries of that office. Our final report will be submitted to the State Executive Council with the names of affected individuals and the appropriate action that needs to be taken.

Plateau state has a number of ministries, which are generating little or no revenue to the state government. Why is this the case?

I think it’s an attitude problem because I have heard civil servants refer to the work they do for the government as a social service –and this is rather unfortunate. There is no doubt that some departments of government may render social services to the community, but the government itself is not a social service otherwise in developed countries the governments will not be taking tax from civil servants. Even from medieval times kings have always collected tax from their subjects to run the state. It’s unfortunate because I believe this idea of the government being a social service, has affected peoples attitude to their jobs so much so that whole ministries do not generate any revenue for the state. As such these ministries are a cost burden, as opposed to income generation outfits. In view of this, the state executive took a decision recently that there should be a consolidated revenue account, so that there would be transparency with regards revenue collection and audit. The idea was that every MDA would pay its revenue into this account in a clear and simple process so that all monies are traceable and auditable. This has enabled government keep track of how much money every MDA is remitting to government coffers.

As an example, take the case of the Ministry of Lands and Survey; is it fair to call a ministry like that a social service department? It’s totally wrong because that is where some of the large amounts of money as revenue should be generated. Should the Ministry of Environments be considered a social service? This is a parastatal that works to ensure that our communities are clean and tidy and that the environment does not decay. Should this ministry not be awarding penalties for people who violate sanitation, refuse collection and environmental rules? The State Government should be able to provide these services to its citizens without any problems. But how can this happen if sufficient revenue is not generated? We in government are trying our best to change the mentality of our people, to ensure they see the need to pay for some of these services.

And to illustrate this point, imagine that everyone had to dispose off their refuse by themselves. You’d find that every person would have to package the waste properly and transport it to a land where they will be charged ground rent for the disposal. And of course this would be a herculean and expensive task for the population. So if government is doing all that for you, you should be happy to pay for such services.

This situation is the same as having a baby sitter or a gardener that you have to pay money to. So why not pay the government to dispose off your refuse and keep our environment clean? These are the things we are trying to get MDAs to look at closely and ensure the citizenry is properly educated about. I want to also add there has been improvements in for example the revenue being generated internally. In the past government used to generate next to nothing, but now our revenue generation has jumped to N800 million and our target is to raise more than N2billion monthly. This is a figure that past administrations were unable to come close to.

Are there any projects that you regret you may not be able to complete before May 29th 2015?

There are lot of projects which we may struggle to complete before the end of this administration. A typical example is the State University. It is our desire that the institution, have structures befitting for a university. The state government recently released 1billion naira, with a second billion being released soon for infrastructural development at the university. Unfortunately however, we may not be able to put all the departments on ground before we leave office in 2015 and this is regrettable. If we had the resources and time, we would have wanted to invest more money in upgrading the university to a standard befitting of Plateau state.

Another such projects i.e., which we may not have time and funds to complete is “additional road networks”. There is a dire need for more road networks around the state to open communities and link them up. Unfortunately because of the expensive nature of road construction and the time it takes, we may not be able to do as much as we would have liked.

In terms of hotels and catering facilities; while we are trying to ensure the stadium along Zaria road is completed to an Olympic standard, it would have been nice to complement this with a five star hotel in plateau state to be able to cater for big sporting and social events. In this respect, we wanted to complete the Sheraton hotel situated along Laminga road, but we have been unable to get credible private partners to work with us on the project because of its capital intensity. Our regret has been that if we had thought about it, we could have invested in the hotel from the beginning of the administration rather that wait for partners. We however are open to new partners and we can start working together and even if we can’t finish it, we hope successive administrations will be able to come and finish it up. It is quite sad to say that Jos, being one of the older cities in Nigeria does not have a five star hotel and it saddens this administration that we are not able to provide this facility for our dear state.

Another project, which is still in view to receive attention hopefully before we leave, is the Jos wild life park. We consider this to be an important project because as the home of peace and tourism we need to be able to demonstrate our tourism potential by rearing healthy wild animals which can provide a source of tourism and education and excursion for school children. We have set a committee to look at how it can be revamped. They have sent us a report which we have studied and are working on at the moment but time is running against us. If we had the financial resources, we would have been able to drive some of these projects through, but plateau state being one of the least receiving states in terms of subversion –is severely handicap. We are however doing the best we can with the little resources we have at hand and that is why we are serious about generating revenue internally to boost what we get from the federal government to be able to complete projects. We may not be able to derive the pleasure of completing or starting new projects with the revenue the state is able to generate at the moment but hopefully successive administrations will be able to benefit from the benchmark we have set.

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Yakubu Jang: “My contributions to Governance and Development of Plateau state” –Second Part of the Exclusive interview with ViewPointNigeria.