[wysija_form id=”1″]March 25, 2015 – Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola today blamed President Goodluck Jonathan and the Federal Government for backlog of unpaid salaries in the state.
Aregbesola who was speaking at a coloquiam in honour of the 63rd birthday of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Lagos said his wage bill exceeds revenue by about six million Naira.
“I must tell you that it is the strongest indictment of president Goodluck Jonathan-led administration. We must know that Osun is next to Lagos in the size of civil servants and pensioners and the burden is huge. Our wage bill in the state is N3.6b, meanwhile, N3b is the highest we’ve ever received from Federal allocation.
“It fell to 2.3b in 2013 and just NI.3b was allocated in January 2015. So, i’ve been adding from the internally generated and still not able to meet up. That is how far the Federal Government has led us, I must painfully admit this,” he said.
He said the Youth Empowerment Scheme has absorbed 80,000 youths into different cadets and the school feeding programme.
Osun school feeding programme, launched in 2012, has increased enrollment in schools to over 25 per cent. “It has increased the production capacity of farmers, with over 3000 women food vendors empowered, besides meeting the Millennium Development Goals on food and health among school children.”
Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos who spoke on the theme “Change: How it will work” said the public must begin to identify the difference between the APC states and those of the opposition, comparing levels of developments.
Speaking on power generation in Lagos in the last couple of years, Fashola recalled that only the Federal Government could generate power in 1999, and Tinubu started the Independent Power Projects (IPPs) in Ikorodu, which has expanded statewide.
According to him, power generation is not rocket science. “Power companies are here and they can deliver turbine power within some months. But the issue is how to finance it and also transmit it.
As at today, Fashola said, five IPPs have been built, with capacity of 47.8MWs in Lagos. The IPPs now power 100kms of streetlights and state institutions like the State Houses in Marina and Alausa, Lagos State Secretariat and the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). Others are the LTV 8, Area F Police Command, High Court, Old Secretariat, General Hospitals, City Hall, Oba’s palace, 11 schools, Waterworks among other. In total, 300 generators had been decommissioned. Besides, installation of solar power kits has started in about 200 schools across the state.
“Commercial distribution is not possible under the power reform and that is why the power is not extended into homes. We do not have people, not because it is difficult to generate. We have darkness because of incompetent people governing us. So as you go to vote on Saturday, remember that leaders are not elected to pray, but to humane, compassionate and effective, all of which Buhari is,” he said.
