In an effort to make all roads motorable in Yagba federal Constituency, a member of the House of Representatives and Chairman, House Committee on Customs and Excise, Hon Leke Joseph Abejide, has said that they are exploring the option of tax credit for Mangal Cement Company, since it has worked elsewhere.
Addressing Yagba Action Group (YAG) led by the body consists of professionals and technocrats from his home Yagba federal constituency in Kogi.
Former presidential aide, the renowned media practitioner, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), and Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja, Tunde Olusunle, led the delegation.
While addressing the delegates, Hon. Abejide said that in the 2022 budget; which was the budget before the election, he put about 1bn on the road from Ilu-Hagba, adding he was trying to see how that bad road could be fixed bit by bit. Still, now that Senator Sunday Karimi has come, they started thinking about what can they do, alternatively.
His words, “We are exploring the option of tax credit for Mangal Cement Company since it has worked elsewhere. We habour them to mine our mineral resources and established factories, so, we should be able to ask them to fix our roads, based on tax holidays.
“I know the Managing Director of Mangal Cement Industries, Alhaji Dahiru Mangal, he is my professional colleague, we knew each other way back in Kano. I put it to him, I said “You cannot just come to our side, take our resources away, and leave the place to decay”. Because, if that happens, I foresee a day when our youths will come and block the road and ask them to stop production.
“The way Dangote Group came then to Obajana, the consciousness of our people was not this high.
If you pass through Obajana, it will seem as if you are going through a war zone, which is wrong. We will not allow that to happen in the case of Ilu-Hagba, because you cannot do that in other places.
“We will support Mangal Cement Company but they must do the needful. Still on the road issue, if you look at the effort I am making at Igbagun axis, I have been patching that road, bit by bit. I started from Omuo-Oke-Ekiti to Igbagun.
“Now we are in Ponyan. But, now, because there are lots of farms along that road, I thought of it as the road from Igbagun to Ijowa, and I want it constructed with asphalt. I went to the presidential villa and If you look at the amended budget, you will find the road there.
“There is N5.250bn there budgeted for asphalt lay of that road entirely down to Ijowa, no more patch-patch. In the second phase, I am looking at the road from Egbe to Okunran-Okoloke-Isanlu-Esa. I will sit down with Senator Karimi, we will work it out together.
“Having the Senator from Yagba in the 10th National Assembly will make my work easier than my first term. And there is another phase from Jege, Ogbom, Ogga to Omi. That one is coming to burst out in Igbaruku-Okeri,” he said.
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