Kaduna govt develops 30-year master plan

Kaduna state government on Tuesday said it would subject its draft 30-year master plan to public criticism before final adoption.

Muhammed Abdullahi, Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning said the plan would run from 2018-2050.

He told newsmen in Kaduna that the government would give the general public the chance to make contributions to the plan for possible amendment before presentation and documentation.

According to him, the master plan will be available for incoming governments to continue and build upon.

He stressed that the aim was to ensure continuity in development planning and projects execution in the state.

Abdullahi said, “We are calling on our people to come and criticize the document before final documentation.

“This is another proof that we are transparent in all we do as a responsible government that is determined to take the state to enviable height.

“We have developed a master plan for Kaduna State; the master plan will be available for the state for the next 32 years,that is between 2018 and 2050.

“It will be available for the incoming governments to continue implementing.

“It did took us time to come up with the master plan but then, we deem it fit to take the pain and do it for the benefit of our dear state.

“We would have possibly gone further by now in implementing capital projects had it been this master plan was on ground when we came in two years ago.”

The commissioner disclosed that the government had compiled a blacklist of some contractors barred from executing any contract for the state.

“Some of them executed projects awarded them so badly while some of them even ran away with mobilization fees without a trace of the project.

“For instance we have a bridge awarded to a contractor with all the money paid, but the bridge was nowhere to be found. You can see it was that bad.

“We have written warning letters to erring contractors; and their failure to respond or give concrete evidence as to what led to their failure have been referred to appropriate quarters.

“Eleven of them are currently been probed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and I think it will be too early to start mentioning their names.

“All this struggle would have ordinarily taken us 12 weeks, but we have spent two years trying to put things right because we inherited a poorly managed government.

“Like I said earlier, all the documents of all we are doing including that of the budget are all available across all the ministries and any interested person can access them for clarification”, he added