Bauchi State Governor, Sen Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed has declared that his administration has so far borrowed a total sum of N100b since coming on board in 2019.
The Governor made the declaration on Wednesday during the opening of the State Executive Council (SEC) meeting held at the Executive Council Chamber of the Government House.
Mohammed said that, “You can see the projects and programmes, we are just starting. We have borrowed N100 billion and today, the projects alone for the infrastructure is getting to N90 billion plus.
“Of course, we are going to save some for education and health. We are saving from the little money we are getting from the Federal Government so that we can leverage this loan to do infrastructure alone. You should be aware of this.
“We are not thieves, we are not here to take anything out of the system, we want to take back every kobo.
“This is our third Executive Council meeting since we came back for a second term. Our attitude to work is to make sure that we make a difference.
“Bauchi State is our major concern and we have no misgivings against anybody. Of course, there are distractions here and there but we will not allow ourselves to be distracted.
“Even the last time when we had COVID-19 and other serious distractions, but, we were able to work. So, we should hit the ground working and I’m happy Commissioners have done that. Because this is where to go. I am still waiting for the Commissioner of Budget and Economic Planning to bring out the performance bond which will give us a direction.”
The Governor declared that he would sign the performance bond with each Commissioner to ensure that the right thing was done directing the Commissioners to sign the same with their permanent secretaries and down the ladder for effective and efficient service delivery.
He assured, “We will try our best to pay salaries, wages and other allowances as we are doing and we will send people for training. we must carry democracy along. We will not leave anyone behind. I have shed a lot of activities and given them to you.
“My predecessors choked themselves with a lot of activities and could not do well. I have asked the SSG and the CoS to allow you to perform while we only supervise. We know that you can do it,” the governor added.
Bala Mohammed urged the Commissioners to always approach when necessary saying that his doors are open for them because according to him, “citizens do call me, how much more you who are my subordinates.
“The spate of ghost workers and the rest will be out of our way. I met the Minister of Communications, he said he understood we are doing so well and he said he’s ready to come to Bauchi and establish a platform so that we can do away with these ghost workers.
“The beneficiaries of these ghost workers are not us, they are not Commissioners, but we allow them. We must be able to check our nominal roll and other data in our hands, we must be able to manage it. It is very easy to manage your ministries and departments unless you don’t want to do it.
“I know there are large places like health and education where we have the prevalence (of the menace of ghost workers) because of the numbers, but we are working very hard to make sure you do it.
“We have so many activities lined up, we have the education summit just to show you that we are more concerned with services not only infrastructure.
“We have to make sure we produce the human capital in our bureaucracy, in our services like health and education. After that, we’ll have the investment summit because we have been going around the world and the world is interested in us and we have what it takes to woo investors.”
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