A delegation of the All Progressive Congress (APC) national media team from Abuja, have scored the administration of governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq excellent in execution of Universal Basic Education Board UBEC -aided school projects.
Led by Dr. Tom Ohikere, the team was on a 3-day visit to Kwara to inspect the ongoing renovation, remodelling and construction projects being undertaken with the UBEC grant, as part of the federal government’s template on accountability.
Dr. Ohikere, who described their assessment of the projects so far as excellent, said they are in Kwara to inspect the UBEC projects starting with the ones executed in basic schools for the purpose of achieving quality service delivery.
The team lead said they will issue a certificate of credence to the administration after the 3-day exercise.
He said they will also seek to know how the staff and students in the affected schools feel about the projects and the government’s response to their welfare needs.. Dr. Ohikere, at the end of the facility tour, gave Kwara a pass mark in terms of quality of work done on the project sites visited, praising the monitoring body of SUBEB for their insistence on proper execution of contracts.
“The quality of work done in the places we have visited and the concept is very strong. They have done excellently well. So what we have seen so far is a judicious and prudent use of the marching grant received by SUBEB in Kwara State. I commend the Governor and Professor Adaramaja led Kwara SUBEB for these,” he said.
Kwara state governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq represented by the state commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, Sa’adatu Modibo Kawu, AbdulRazaq lauded the federal government’s assessment initiative and how the UBEC had acceded to his requests on developmental programmes in education sector.
While thanking the party for picking Kwara as one of the northern states to visit, AbdulRazaq called on the APC Media team to consider other states being controlled by opposition parties, stressing that they also owe Nigerians explanations on how they spent the education development resources they received from the national treasury.
Other members of the visiting team include Olumide Babalola and Lawal Aliyu Ajah respectively.
Professor AbdulRaheem ,KWASUEB chairman, for his part, said Kwara had since 2012 ceased to execute UBEC-aided projects because it was blacklisted for the diversion of over #1b UBEC fund for the year 2013, a development he said had hitherto “led us to a horrible situation that Kwarans will never forget in history.”
Apart from off-setting the inherited debt of #450 million to UBEC, Adaramaja said, the present government had to pay N7.1 billion 6-year counterpart funds (2014 – 2020) that qualified Kwara to get #14.2 billion in turn, thanking AbdulRazaq for his vision and sincerity about governance.
Some of the project sites visited include Baboko Community Junior Secondary School, Baboko LGEA primary school; Government Day Secondary School Airport; Madi LGEA school; Ogidi LGEA school; and Asa LGEA school Ote-Oja.