All Kwara LGs allocation goes to salary payment – Gov. Abdulrazaq

Kwara state governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, on Thursday said the state’s local governments allocation from the federal government were not touched by the state government as being insinuated in some quarters.

He made this known while speaking at the public presentation of a pictorial compendium of the state of infrastructures and social amenities across the 16 local government areas of the state in Ilorin.

He disclosed that the total sum is been used for the payment of salaries of the local government staff and pensioners, saying nothing is left for the local governments for infrastructural projects.

The compendium was compiled by a non-governmental organisation, (NGO), Kwara Development Trackers (KDT).

The governor put the salary arrears of the local government council workers left behind by the past administration at N5billion adding that the monthly allocation from the federation account for both the state and the 16 local governments is in the region of N6.5 billion.

He added that previous government spent between N6 billion and N10 billion on water reticulation of Ilorin metropolis, adding that there’s no water to drink in the city.

“That is why we have proliferation of boreholes in major towns and cities of the state. We don’t have a reason to have borehole scattered across the Ilorin town. Boreholes are like stand-by generators to complement electricity supply,” he said.

“Our challenges are enormous and we are equal to the task. We know the enormity of the work and the task ahead. Sixteen years of rot of the last administration is difficult to fix in six months. Our administration has in the last few months saved a sum of N8billion. This amount will be used to fund the 2020 budget,” he said.

In his welcome address, the convener of KDT, Barrister Sambo Muritala, disclosed that his team embarked on assignment to assist the present administration in identifying the needs of the people of various communities across the state.

“It is our resolution that no matter how beautiful the good idea of a government is, there can never be any commendation from the people if this good idea of government is not in tandem with the basic needs and necessities of the people.

“Complaints, requests, and agitations of people were treated as mere distractions to the government and no matter how hard people push, government hardly change their prepared blue print,” he said.

Sambo said they are not out to condemn the previous government as what was on ground show the limit of their capacity; rather they are out to change the methodology in governance, citing aviation college and IVTEC school in the state as examples of misplaced priority of past government because of the low impacts on the people of the state.