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The Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello on Thursday said his administration prides itself that the citizens have access to “tons of new and improved infrastructure” across the three senatorial districts.
Governor Bello in a text of address to celebrate the second anniversary of his second term in office, said his infrastructural strides were only dreams when he took government.
“This includes thousands of kilometres of new roads, hundreds of classroom blocks and primary healthcare centres, several model primary and secondary schools, along with massive urban renewal projects in Ankpa, Okene and Kabba, the traditional capitals of our 3 Senatorial Zones, other larger cities and of course, our state capital, Lokoja.
“We have also built a 300-bed reference hospital and half a dozen general hospitals, established the brand new Confluence University of Science and Technology (CUSTECH), Osara which is currently in session and constructed dozens of legacy buildings in all our other tertiary institutions.
“We also achieved the first ever 100% accreditation of courses by national regulators at several of our institutions, including the Prince Abubakar Audu University, Anyigba,” he said.
Bello, on civil service reforms, claimed that that his administration is not owing the state workers and pays them on or before the end of each month since the end of Staff screening three years ago.
The Governor, however, noted that the inability of the state’s cash flow to accommodate 100% salary payments to local government workers, unless workers are further retrenched, an option he could no longer consider.
“Currently, this can only be possible with extensive staff retrenchment to remove the massive redundancy inherent in the system. This is the sad reality imposed on us by a bloated workforce in the face of severely dessicated allocations cum finances.
“While there exists strong justifications for this option, it remains one which I, personally, consider too drastic to deploy against citizens in the present state of our Nigerian economy.
He said he would likely pass the problem “down the road to the next administration.
