Soludo To Begin Implementation Of 25 Million Naira Community-Choose-Your-Project Scheme, Says ASATU

The National President Anambra State Association of Town Unions (ASATU) Chief Barr. Titus Nnabuike Akpudo has hinted that Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo will in no distant time begin to implement his promise of 25 Million Naira Community-Choose-Your-Project Scheme for communities in the state.

Akpudo who gave the hint during an exclusive interview at the ASATU national secretariat Government House Awka, said the governor was determined to engender massive grassroots development through the 25 Million Naira grant that would be disbursed to communities to execute projects of pressing needs without interferences.

He said soon communities will begin to submit proposals to government on their preferred projects which government would sponsor through the community development scheme and that the governor upgraded the scheme from 20 Million Naira of the previous administration to 25 Million Naira presently.

Apart from the Community-Choose-Your-Project Scheme, Akpudo equally disclosed that the present administration has enthroned relative peace in various communities where town union crisis were the order of the day, adding that the relationship between ASATU and Soludo’s government is very cordial.

According to him, government involves ASATU in its programmes especially as it concerns monitoring projects in their respective communities.

He was however of the opinion that before Soludo’s administration came on board, moneybags and political bigwigs in the communities conveniently ordered for the removal of a President-General from office without the opportunity of fair-hearing.

He said incessant arbitrary removal of PGs from their positions led to many communities having town union caretaker committees and non-elected officials until the dawn of a new era came with the present state government and PGs who were wrongly removed from office were reinstated like the PGs of Ifitedunu, Agulu, Awgbu, Alor, Nkweleezunaka, Isiagu to mention a few, adding that town union elections have been conducted in over 80 communities which currently have duly elected PGs and other officials.
ASATU national president who described the Local Government Commissioner Hon. Tony Collins Nwabunwanne as an expert in community affairs, maintained that his tenure was the very first-time government showed real interest in issues concerning PGs and traditional rulers in Anambra state.

Akpudo, therefore, thanked Governor Soludo for his efforts in rural development, saying that all the road constructions were being executed in the communities. He added that planting of Coconut and Oil Palm seedlings were equally done in the communities.

He also stated that the 5000 teachers who were employed by the Soludo administration came from the communities. That the health workers employed belonged to communities. That the One Youth Two Skills Programme of the state government, youths of various communities were core beneficiaries