By CHARLES IWUOHA

Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State on Sunday, said that all political appointees would be assessed by performance benchmarks set for all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), saying the administration was in a hurry to deliver on its campaign promises.

Mbah stated this in his closing remarks at a three-day Executive Leadership Retreat held for senior political appointees at the Nike Lake Resort in Enugu from Friday to Sunday.

Speaking at the retreat themed “Strategic Leadership for Disruptive Innovation and Sustainable Development” which brought together leadership, development, financial, climate, public sector, strategy and innovation experts such as Prof. Joseph Urama of the African Development Bank, Dr. Ibukun Awosika, Linus Okorie, Dr. Joe Abah, Dr. Sam Onyia, and Prof. Chukwumerije Okereke.

The governor said that raising the state’s economy from $4.4 billion to $30 billion was doable if the political appointees applied the knowledge garnered at the retreat to disrupt the status quo which was no longer acceptable.

“I think that everything we have expressed here in terms of our vision is possible. Development history is replete with countries, sub-nationals, and cities where the people have come together and agreed that they would change the narrative, the pattern of growth, and they committed themselves to it, and it happened.

“So, nobody should tell you that what we want to do in Enugu is impossible. With our can-do spirit, we can achieve a $30 billion economy in the next eight years. We can achieve a great city. We can achieve access to the best quality education that any child can have access to in the world. We can also have access to high-quality healthcare service in this state. We can build 10,000 kilometres of road. We can restore water to Enugu in the next two months as promised our people and also make access to clean water happen for our people across the state in no distant time. We can also achieve zero poverty headcount and eradicate poverty from our state and deliver on every promise we made.

“Indeed we can make Enugu the premier destination for business, investment, tourism, and living.

“We are already thinking about the future that we want to bequeath to our children, and history beckons on all of us to do something. If we believe in it, if we have the can-do spirit, then we can make it happen”, the governor said.

Throwing more light on the retreat, the Secretary to the State Government, SSG, Prof. Chidiebere Onyia, said the retreat was put together to digest Governor Peter Mbah’s vision and map out strategies for achieving it across the MDAs.

“We designed it around three key areas. We designed it around leadership, looking at ethical leadership, transformational leadership, and other aspects of leadership. We thought about the strategy that we were going to adopt and planned out our delivery approach. The third one was performance. We looked at it around how to measure what we have agreed success will mean to us as a team. So we have set out a course of action”, he stated.

Other participants, such as the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Barr. Victor Udeh; Commissioner for Sports and Youth Development, Barr. Lloyd Ekweremadu; Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Dame Ugochi Madueke; Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Nathaniel Uramah; Commissioner Children, Gender Affairs and Social Welfare, Mrs. Ngozi Enih; Executive Chairman, Enugu State Tourism Board, Rita Mbah; and the Chairman, Enugu State Universal Basic Education Board (ENSUBEB), Dr. GOC Ajah, among others, described the retreat as eye-opening, strategic and enriching.

“If we had any iota of doubts in our minds as to the achievability of the lofty vision of the governor, the doubts have petered away. We now feel empowered, more knowledgeable, and charged to go and deliver; and that is exactly what we are going back to our MDAs to do”, Mrs. Enih stated.

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