Gov Inuwa marks 2nd-anniversary flags off projects in Gombe metropolis

Gombe State Governor, Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya celebrated his second-year anniversary in office on Saturday by flagging off more projects that have direct bearings on the lives of the people of the state.

The Governor While flagging off the construction of a township road in Kumbiya Kumbiya ward of Gombe Local Government Area, vowed not to betray the trust bestowed on his administration through their votes.

The Governor also flagged off the construction of Alabura Model Primary/Junior Secondary School in Kumbiya Kumbiya ward named after a renowned educationist in the State, Alabura S Kudi saying that the ward is the only one in the State that has no school as such, this is another election a campaign promise fulfilled.

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At the grand celebration in Pantami Township Stadium which was attended by prominent politicians across the country including Senator Mohammad Danjuma Goje, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff among many others, the Governor said the mid-term anniversary is an ideal period to reflect on the administration’s journey towards building a better Gombe State for all it’s people.

He thanked the people for their prayers, support, cooperation and understanding in the past two years which spurred the administration to deliver on it’s campaign promises despite unprecedented disruption and other challenges faced.

He also said that prominent challenges faced by the administration at its inception in May, 2019 included, huge debt burden of over N120 billion, dilapidated educational and health infrastructure, an ill-motivated and dysfunctional civil service neglect of rural areas and low-income neighborhoods amongst others. 

According to the Governor, as the administration was settling to tackle these challenges, the advent of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and subsequent lock down that followed led to severe health, economic and social impacts globally, thereby plunging the country into a deep economic recession with devastating impacts on lives and livelihoods of the people. 

He said the administration however took bold steps to address the pressing developmental challenges facing the state stressing that, “in my inaugural address, I pledged to do my utmost best to achieve all the goals outlined in our manifesto. Thanks to Almighty Allah that within 2 years, we have been able to keep to these promises and did even more.”

In his words, “our administration has proved to be a break from the past, progressively moving from a culture of administrative recklessness, financial mismanagement and political apathy to that of prudence, accountability and responsibility. 

“In keeping to our promise to institutionalize accountability, we have empowered the Fiscal Responsibility Commission to deliver on its mandate, enacted and signed into Law the Public Procurement Act.

Inuwa Yahaya added that, ” We also introduced Treasury Single Account and established the Bureau for Public Service reforms which facilitated the introduction of Biometric attendance and facial recognition system for the public service thereby tackling the ghost worker syndrome and its attendant consequential effects”.

He then explained that these reforms have started yielding positive results as evidenced by the state’s excellent performance in the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) programme thereby attracting over 14 million USD reward for the State from the World Bank.  

The Governor added that, “We have successfully improved our Internal Revenue Generation by 25% in 2020 fiscal year and by 62% in first quarter of 2021 compared to the preceding quarter in 2020.”

“Equally, we have strived to reduce the inherited liabilities by paying off gratuity and pension arrears to the tune of about 2.4 billion Naira thus committing an average of 100 million monthly out of the 14 billion inherited from the immediate past administration,” the Governor stated.