Date: 2019-07-24

Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has insisted that the state's budget must address the people's needs.He directed top civil servants yesterday to meet him at the state's school of special needs for the review of their budgets.

The governor said he purposely scheduled the meeting at the school to let the government functionaries appreciate the need to allocate resources to directly benefit the downtrodden in the society.

The governor had earlier visited the school few weeks back to listen to the teachers and inspect facilities, apologising to the children and promising to quickly attend to their needs.

"Work has started, in line with our Iseya mantra. I am sorry to drag you here; it is symbolic. This is necessary for you to understand that there are other people who have needs that we should meet. I want (the budget) to be more inclusive, going forward," he told the civil servants at the mid-year budget review session in Apata Yakuba suburb of Ilorin.

Head of Service (HoS), Mrs. Susan Oluwole; chairman of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS), permanent secretaries, directors and heads of various government departments and parastatals attended the meeting.

AbdulRazaq told the bureaucrats that bringing them to the school was to ensure that budgets were made to reflect the condition of the people, and not to show executive powers.

"I had been here and I know they have needs. The pupils here don't have access to very basic needs. They don't have light. They can't read. This is a trend across the state. Our schools are in bad state. This is why we emphasise the need to get basic things running first," he said.

According to him, the budget should be realistic. "We want to put basic things in place first before we move into big budget (projects)."He urged top civil servants and wealthy members of the society to help the special needs children and other disadvantaged members of the society.

The meeting was the second time the governor would pull top civil servants to the hinterland to be in the shoe of the people.In June, he had summoned permanent secretaries and other officials to Patigi in Kwara North, following his visit to some schools and hospitals whose conditions he deemed unacceptable.