Dear Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq,
It is my belief that this short piece meet you in peace.
First I wish to commend you for all your efforts in getting first hand information on the state of the state, it is the basis for a good planner to draw his plans and policies, I say thank you.
In furtherance to that great task, you gave a matching order to the MDAS to come up with a fiscal plan in line with your experience from the on-the-spot assessment of the state. And in less than a few months you presented a document titled, “Budget of reconstruction and reformation”, with focus to rebuild the ruins of the past while reforming the future of our people.
In as much as I know your very tight schedule, I wish you had the time to peruse the document before presenting it to the Kwara House of Assembly.
Sir, please permit me to point to some areas I found amusing in the Budget document;
1. Recall sir, that you just set up a Committee on the Minimum wage review to liaise with the Labour Union, but I wonder why there is no provision for it in the spending plan, can we now say it is an exercise in futility for this year?
2. Some MDAs outrageous figure E.g. Min. of Energy where there was a vote for Electricity charge of above 400 Million, when it is clear even all MDAs combined cannot consume that in a year.
3.An item line of 22021136 titled Management Staff Budget voted about N1.6Billion. Sir, I wonder what place will that item line fit in your priorities, recalling you just gave approval for the construction of 31 schools across the state at a cost of N2 Billion. Imagine what N1.6billion would do to the betterment of lives of Kwarans.
it is worthy to point out to you that, as we have in Min. of Energy, so we do have for many other MDAs, thus, a review may be necessary.
Lastly, there is no provision for the newly created Ministry of Special duties and Ministry of Enterprise is also missing in action. I hope it is my misunderstanding but the budget is a shoddy job.
it is my hope that you will have a second look into the document.
God bless Kwara and the rest of the world. May Kwara succeed.
Suleiman Oladimeji writes from Ilorin.