Governor Obiano in a special broadcast in awka yesterday unfolds an economic stimulus package to ease the pain of recession in the state. This makes the state the first to announce specific programmes aimed at alleviating the impact of recession on the residents of the state.
The governor in his special broadcast titled “Rising from the brink” revealed that he was glad to announce to his people a stimulus package he came up with which he believe would ease the pain of recession and help the state to bounce back. According to the governor the intervention would be in four key areas which are:
- Tax Relief Programme
- Special Intervention Programmes for Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs and Large Enterprises
- Social Intervention Programme for Low Income Households
- Intervention in Infrastructure-for-Jobs.
The objective of the tax relief programme according to the governor is to review existing taxes, levies and fees in the state and then introduce waivers and in some cases eliminate the collection of some of the illegal levies imposed on the people.
Under the first package which is tax relief, the governor announced the suspension of the sale of consolidated emblems in the state, wheelbarrow tax in all markets in the state, and also abolished the imposition of unapproved levies on students in public primary and secondary schools in the state.
On the Special Intervention Programme for Small and Medium Enterprise. The governor announced that his administration would provide the Anambra Small Business Agency (ASBA) with a minimum of N3 billion to lend to SMEs and MSMEs at 9% rate across key sectors.
The governor also announced the provision of N3.6 billion to fund the ongoing choose-your project community programme in all the 179 communities in the state, he stated that each community has been allocated N20 million to spend on their most pressing concerns.
He continued by announcing the provision of automatic employment for all graduates from universities in Anambra living with disabilities
Anambra state is one of the few states in the country that is coping well with the recession, the governor in an earlier event revealed that his administration had envisaged the recession and then made agriculture its pillar. The stimulus package is the latest in its attempts to grapple with the recession and the first with a specified and detailed plan.