Date: 2017-09-09

The Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, says the state has witnessed significant development across all sectors in the last 14 years.

Governor Ahmed, who spoke through a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Muyideen Akorede, said Kwara State has recorded visible progress since 2003 as his administration and that of former Governor Bukola Saraki have elevated the state and its people despite spending the bulk of federal allocations on salaries and pensions.

The statement noted that the Ahmed administration has completed most inherited projects and has equally implemented new projects while several are ongoing across the State.

It highlighted some of the projects implemented by the present administration to include renovation and equipping of five general hospitals into state-of-the-art facilities, International Vocational, Technical and Entrepreneurship College (IVTEC) Ajase Ipo, KWASU's ultra-modern Engineering Complex, urban and rural electrification and water projects as well as youth empowerment and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) development under which more than 60,000 youths and entrepreneurs have benefited.

The statement added that the state government has rehabilitated 17 waterworks across the state, expanded its Community Health Insurance scheme and carried out reforms such as the establishment of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service, KWIRS, and Kwara Infrastructural Development Fund, IF-K, which have ensured sustained infrastructure development and prompt payment of salaries and pensions to State workers and pensioners. According to the statement, these reforms have also enabled the state government implement several road projects across the State despite the limited resources at its disposal.

Stressing that development is an ongoing process and that governance is a continuum, the statement listed the ongoing projects to include Geri Alimi Diamond Underpass, the new KWASU Campuses at Ekiti and Ilesha Baruba, its Postgraduate School in Ilorin, dualisation of Kulende-UITH road and the solar-powered streetlights project, "Light Up Kwara".

Continuing, the statement noted that the previous administration of Bukola Saraki, the current Senate President, implemented several infrastructural projects such as the Kwara State University, Malete, Harmony Advanced Diagnostic Centre, International Aviation College, Ilorin, Shonga farms, numerous urban and rural roads and electrification projects, remodelling of the Ilorin Township Stadium as well as pioneered the innovative Community Health Insurance Scheme.

The statement stated that the projects have expanded access to higher education, boosted health care for Kwarans, established the state as an aviation hub, created thousands of local jobs and significantly developed the State. Providing further explanation, the statement noted that any attempt to assess the utilisation of monetary inflows into Kwara since 2003 must recognise the fact that as a civil-service dominated State, Kwara utilises up to 70 per cent of allocation for payment of salaries and overheads.

It, however, maintained that despite this, the state government has implemented several developmental projects across all sectors, stressing that "Kwara of today does not bear any semblance with Kwara of 2003 development-wise".