Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has assured the Ekiti people of his administration’s commitment to the all-round development of the state with particular focus on the health sector as it kick-started 2021 budget preparations.
The Governor said the 2021 budget would focus more on health care delivery assuring the people that the government would establish at least one health facility in each of the 177 wards in the state.
Fayemi, who stated this on Monday during his town hall meetings with the citizens of the state in the three senatorial districts- North, South and Central, as part of preparations for the 2021 budget, recalled that the effort had become an annual ritual since his first term in office aimed at ensuring community participation in budget preparation.
The event, which coincided with the commencement of the second year anniversary of the governor had all the communities present their needs by their selected representatives according to their priorities at the meetings which held in Ikole, Ikere and Ado-Ekiti.
The governor noted that his administration was irrevocably committed to participatory and all-inclusive government and budgeting adding that the purpose of the meeting was to interact with the representative of various towns and communities to articulate the needs of the communities for inclusion in the 2021 annual budget.
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According to him, “This town hall meeting, which is in consonance with our agenda of good governance, is in fulfilment of the requirement of our government and requirement of our budget preparation. It also conforms to the objectives of open government partnership which I recently inaugurated in Ekiti state. It is heartwarming to note that Ekiti State is the first state in the South-West to subscribe to the open government partnership.
“The import is clearly to demonstrate that good governance cannot happen if we did not listen to the genuine yearnings of our grassroots and it is our duty to promote accountability and transparency in our dear state. It is common knowledge that we have limited resources at our disposal, however, inadequate resources should not hinder us from delivering on our electioneering promises to our people.
“This budget is going to be more health compliant than any other thing, you will witness in 2021, a comprehensive completion of rehabilitation of all our General Hospitals in the state. You will recall that I started the reconstruction and rehabilitation of General Hospitals, State Specialists Hospital during my first term in office, some of that work was not completed, unfortunately, the government that took over left them at the point we got to and some of the works that we’ve done in those hospitals have even deteriorated. So we need to start from scratch in many cases and no local government would lose out in the process.”
The governor also reviewed the performance of the 2020 budget and noted that the budget of N124, 724, 869,355.95 had to be slashed due to the global outbreak of coronavirus pandemic lockdown to N91 billion.
He said this was done to meet the state’s economic reality which now accorded priority to critical sectors of the state, which included healthcare delivery, agricultural and rural development and infrastructure development in response to the pandemic and to reposition the economy of the state.
Fayemi promises to build one healthcare centre per ward in Ekiti
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