Benue APC expresses concern over Ortom’s overseas trips

TRACKING_____The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Benue State has expressed concern over Governor Samuel Ortom’s frequent foreign trips and called on him to put a stop to the endless streams of foreign travels as the state under him was not lucky with foreign trade agreements.

The party was reacting to the governor’s current trip to the United States of America, where he was expected to participate in the US-Benue Trade Forum scheduled to commence today as well as in France to attend the Paris Annual International Agricultural Show.

But the governor, in a statement through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Terver Akase, said the event was to take place in Atlanta, California and Los Angeles.

The event which had the theme; ‘Think Global, Grow Local,’ was aimed at promoting economic cooperation between institutions and organisations in the United States and Benue.

The governor’s spokesman, who did not disclose when the governor was expected back in the state, said the forum would provide opportunities in agro-based businesses, infrastructure development and healthcare.

But Acting APC Publicity Secretary in the state, Mr. James Ornguga, in a reaction via a statement, said the party was not excited about the governor’s foreign trips anymore.

The APC said substantial number of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) and bilateral agreements signed by the Ortom administration since its inception in 2015 till date had failed to yield the intended results.

“APC recalls specifically that on the 22nd of April, 2016, Governor Ortom signed an MoU with Wuzheng Group in Rizhao, China, for the establishment of a Modern Tractor Assembly Plant in Makurdi and he again attended the 29th Exhibition of Belagro in the Republic of Belarus, without the state having anything to show for it.

“In April 2017, Benue’s thick delegation to China headed by the then Leader of the State Economic Team, Prof. Dennis Ityavyar, travelled all the way from Guangzhou to Qinqdao, where they, on behalf of the governor, signed a pact with the Qinqdao Bureau of Commerce covering several areas of economic cooperation such as electricity and road construction in the 23 local government areas of the state without fruition.

“Just last year, the governor was in Japan to attend the Global Economic Summit, whose impact we have yet to see and feel in the state.

“Since the current trip is tagged a trade forum, we were expecting that the governor would assemble a team of trade experts and those knowledgeable in agriculture in his government to make the trip with him rather than exercising a ‘Jack of all trades’ attribute.”

The party pleaded with the governor to put a stop to what it called his endless streams of foreign travels and concentrate on the task of good governance, which in all fair judgemental parameters, had eluded Benue under his rule.

It advised the governor to commit the huge amount of money spent as estacodes in embarking on foreign trips to revive the agricultural sector, where the state had comparative advantage over other states.