Our plan for phenomenal revenue growth in Kwara —Finance commissioner

Mrs Florence Olasumbo Oyeyemi, the 33-year-old Kwara State Commissioner for Finance, speaks about the financial engineering that has made the strides being recorded in the state possible. She also speaks on other issues. Excerpts by Sulaimon Olanrewaju.

 

You asked for an adjustment of the Kwara State budget this year. Why was there a need for that?

We had a budget for 2021 that was prepared and signed into law in January 2021.  During COVID, we saw the need to invest in major infrastructural development that will drive the economy of the state, which requires building factories, industries and having businesses running fully and properly within the state. And knowing full well how COVID-19 pandemic has affected state finances, and how it has affected returns even from IGR due to the lockdown and businesses not running full process as they used to run pre-COVID-19, we need to find other means of financing some of our plans, some of our policies or some of the things that are in line with our developmental plan for the state. That was why we sought to go into the non-conventional market to issue a bond. We started the processing last year, then this year the funds started rolling in, and at the end, it is expected that before we expend such funds, there is need for these funds to be appropriated. So, this led us to having a supplementary budget that will accommodate the new unexpected funds at the beginning of the year that eventually came in during the course of the year. Basically, the reason we had a new budget during the course of the year was to accommodate the bond facility.

 

There are talks about your government planning to set up industries and factories with part of the bond proceeds. How true is this?

There are quite a number of things that we would like to do in the state. So many things that are in tandem with the manifesto of His Excellency, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq,  Governor of Kwara State and also in tandem with his policy and how he intends to drive the economic development of the state. So some of the things we’re doing is having agro processing industries, we’re having an Innovation Hub; we’re having a film factory and garment factory. So, these are projects that are targeted at employment, also targeted at generating more IGR for the state, and projects that are targeted at driving investment for the state, foreign direct investments for the state. Those are some of the things that we tend to use the facility for.

 

You prioritised the new minimum wage payment in your budget this year. Have you implemented it? 

We’ve implemented the minimum wage.  And they started receiving payments as far back as February this year.

 

You also prioritised tech reforms in the educational sector in your budget. Can you speak to that?

We recently completed the Kwara Education Summit that had global education decision makers coming in to speak and to contribute to how we intend to or how best it is to run our public education system. The communiqué is being put into an implementation plan. And this implementation plan has to do with a lot of things, and one of these is digital learning and e-learning for schools, and even under the UBEC Schools project, the governor has actually paid counterpart funding, and this counterpart funding, has allowed us to enjoy the benefit of training and retraining of some of the teachers within the public school system, so that they run the 21st century e-learning system and they could actually transfer within the classrooms to the students.  Also for e-learning, we are signing up to a lot of projects around education and how best we are going to drive digital learning. One of the things that Innovation Hub will do for us asides bringing people to run something close to Silicon Valley in Kwara, we will also be letting our students, our own youths to engage, to get them engaged in some of the things we’re doing. Even right now that the Innovation Hub building is not fully set, we’ve engaged our youths in lots of digital training programmes. So we’re not joking with e-Learning and Digital Learning, our moving there and it’s really showing in our classrooms. Even the ministry now has a department that will be responsible for monitoring, and for updating, and for implementation of the 21st century e-learning advancements that comes on board.

 

What sustainability plan do you have for your social investment programmes?

The social investment programme is very dear to His Excellency.  He is really directing it at the vulnerable groups, making sure they have access to funds for businesses, they have access to funds for their livelihood maintenance. Since he came on board when we started a full implementation of this programme in  late 2019, it has produced maximum results. The system we›re using in running this social investment programme is backed and is being handled by the Bank of Industries. So it›s more like what is happening at the national level that has been sustainable over the years since the advent of the president; it has been sustainable over the years. So ours is also following the same pattern, we›re using the same template, even in a more reformed process for disbursing  funds for data collection, for funds management,  for funds auditing, same for transparency and accountability process across the entire system, so it›s a long stretch of programme.

 

To what degree is there pressure on finances of Kwara State as a result of the Social Investment Programmes?

Part of the policy direction of His Excellency is running people-centred programmes. Running a programme whereby people will benefit, irrespective of where they are or who they are related to, it’s a non partisan kind of programme that is highly objective. Now, because that is his focus, we intend to always appropriate funds for that. I’m not saying we do not have fiscal challenges. It is happening in all states, but we are not relenting because it’s something that His Excellency has promised to do. And he has continued in that line, even during COVID for example, when we had the lockdown. It was an opportunity for us to reach out to Okada riders, to reach out to transporters, market women that could not access businesses, as usual. We all knew how finances were for states and also involving in all other sorts of expenditure, unforeseen expenditure during COVID, but still we went ahead to fulfill this requirement because it’s our mandate for the people, that we must reach out to the people and get the people involved, and let the people benefit from the dividends of the government and affirm the promises of His Excellency. So because it’s something dear to our hearts, no matter how bad or how  tight the fiscal position of the state is, we›ll try as much as possible to run our people-centered programmes so that our people’s lot can be improved.

 

Are you happy with the place where Kwara State is in the FAAC table?

Certainly, I am not happy. Since our administration came on board, we’ve been going back and forth, about ensuring that we move up on the allocation table. This is not because we want to beg to be moved up, but it is our right to be moved up. Apparently the last administration didn’t do what they should have done. There was a review at some point before 2018 to move states up from wherever they were because based on the indices that are being considered for your position on the allocation table, these include social investment, land mass, population, hospital beds and IGR. So, when you look at all of these, the state has really improved over the years, especially since the administration of Gov AbdulRazaq came on board. Since we came on board, there has been a lot of improvement in our IGR, in our transparency index, in our accountability index and all of that.  We’ve been able to achieve a lot of things, and His Excellency has invested a lot in infrastructure development. We have more than enough hospital beds; renovation is going on in more hospitals. So we have done a lot. Unfortunately, I think the 2018 review that was done had not been put to effect to date. That’s why we’re still where we are but we all know and they also know that we are not supposed to be there. We’ve done a few review exercises, a few consultative sessions and we hope before very soon, there will be a review of the table and we will really move up the ladder because we deserve to be really on top.

 

What would you say are the highlights of your achievements in the finance ministry?

One major highlight we’ve had in the finance ministry is we’ve been able to develop an economic sustainability plan for the state. And also we’ve followed up and issued laws that foster our transparency and accountability index.  And also we’ve been able to publish a citizens’ accountability report to the public. And also we have continuously released our quarterly budgets implementation report, to get people informed about where we are, how we are doing and where we intend to get to before the end of the year. Other achievements for the ministry include ensuring timely releases of all approvals to both contractors and state governments’ needs, and we have never paid salaries outside the months of the year. So as bad as it is, we ensure that salaries are being paid in full, which is a good one for this state.

 

Is there pressure on you as a youth to deliver on this job?

I would not say there isn’t pressure. Even if I don’t feel it, I’m pressurised. I’m not pressurised because I’m a youth but because I’m a woman. I’m the first female Commissioner for Finance in the state; really, I’m the youngest Commissioner for Finance in the state.

 

How do you engage the citizens?

This is another good thing that is also one of the achievements of His Excellency because we started the citizens’ engagements when he came on board as the governor of the state.

We weren’t doing it before. We started in 2019, and for the ministry, we have registered youth groups. We have registered NGOs, we have registered CBOs, CSOs across all local governments, and some of the NGO and CBOs are centred on a particular thing. Some are doing women inclusion some are into youths’ inclusion. Some are into widows, some are into poverty eradication, some are into education. We have them across different sections. So, we have a coalition of all of those groups, we have their data and sites in the ministry. So anytime we want to have citizens’ engagement, we take it to the grassroots. So everybody representing districts come together to make their submission and aside from that, we also have a feedback form or comment form on our website page where people can actually write about what they want, and the budgets. So, we have physical citizens’ engagement and we also have an online platform on the state’s website where people can make comments and write what they want in the budget. So we might not be able to accommodate all but to a certain percentage, it informs our decision-making process in ensuring that we’re spending funds on what the people need and not what we feel they need.

 

Do you think you can do better with the IGR of the state, if so, what would you do to make that happen?

You know there’s always room for improvement, and the state’s Internal Revenue Service has been doing a lot of things to grow the revenue. We have been able to identify lots of leakages through some of the approaches that they have engaged since this administration came on board, and that has also improved the internally generated revenue in the state. But as I said there’s always room for improvement so we keep growing. For example, some of the projects that the bond is being targeted at are also to generate revenue for the state. By the time all these projects come into full force, we are going to be like Lagos and we will also be generating a lot of revenue, much more than what we’re generating now.