From Mike Tayese, Yenagoa

The Bayelsa State Government has reaffirmed its determination to aggressively pursue its housing scheme programme by providing low cost residential homes for her civil servants.Deputy Governor, Sen Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo made this known at the weekend while granting audience to the Bayelsa Chapter of the National Association of Government General Medical and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMDP) in Government House, Yenagoa.

Ewhrudjakpo clarified that the low cost housing scheme which would be run on “Owner-occupier basis” is targeted at enhancing the welfare of workers in the employ of the government. According to the deputy governor, the Senator Douye Diri-led administration has silently declared an emergency on the housing sector to address the shortage of residential and office accommodation confronting civil servants in the state.Ewhrudjakpo assured that the ongoing construction of the 9-storey iconic new secretariat building would be completed in record time not only to tackle the issue of office accommodation but also boost the productivity of the state workforce.He said the government had already mandated the state Housing Authority to directly handle the programme to avoid unnecessary bottlenecks and delays after flagging off the project.The Deputy Governor, however, decried the poor maintenance culture of many civil servants occupying already existing government staff residential quarters in the state and urged them to turn a new leaf.Responding to the issue of funding of residency training for medical doctors, he pointed out that Bayelsa was the only state in the country which had the Residency Law already enacted, and assured the NAGGMDP delegation that the Government would continue to keep faith with the training programme.While assuring the Association of government’s support for its programme to help the physically challenged in the state, Ewhrudjakpo advised them to extend their work of charity to the rural communities to impact the needy there.His words: ‘”This administration is making the issue of housing a major part of our agenda. We want to put it on the front burner as a priority to develop a housing scheme for civil servants. You are also civil servants; so you will also benefit from it.”The Governor has declared a state of emergency on housing. That is why you see that for the first time, we don’t have a ministry of housing. We have decided to put all our energy into the state Housing Authority so that they can actually push that agenda very far.”We are also looking at the issue of rural housing because we don’t want to concentrate on Yenagoa alone. The immediate past administration started it, so we have some pockets of rural houses. But we are going to expand it.”But there is also the need for workers occupying government quarters to keep them neat. If you go to some quarters or barracks, they are the dirtiest places because they don’t take care of the quarters they occupy.”The same thing applies to the civil servant quarters. It is only a few civil servants who have a sense of taste that renovate where they are staying and make it fit to live in.”The leader of the NAGGMDP delegation, Dr. Akpesiri Pearl said the visit was to solicit government’s buy-in and support for the association’s programme to give support for persons living with disabilities.While thanking the Deputy Governor for facilitating the Governor’s approval of the 25 and 35 percent review of CONMESS, Dr. Akpesiri called on the government for the payment of medical residency training for their members, as well as addressing the challenges of staff accommodation, infrastructure decay and lack of facilities at the public hospitals.