By Steve Oni, Ilorin
The Kwara State Executive Council has approved the construction of another state secretariat at the cost of N1, 108,011,068.73k.
This was disclosed on Wednesday at a press briefing jointly addressed by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Alhaji Mahmud Ajeigbe and the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) media and communications to the Kwara State Governor, Dr Muideen Akorede at the end of the state Executive Council meeting.
The Secretariat which is expected to be completed within 36 weeks commencing from July will house four ministries namely, Ministry of Energy, Planning, Commerce and Water Resources.
The Council also directed the Ministry of Environment to begin immediate distilling of all drainages across the state with a view to fore-stalling flooding normally associated with raining season.
Dr Akorede said the council also directed the media team to step up advocacy on the need for people to avoid dumping of refuse in drainages as a necessary step to avoid flooding in the state.
Akorede said: “The Council commended the timely intervention of Ministry of Health to the outbreak of cholera in two Local Government Areas of the state by going around to tertiary and primary health care centres providing them with emergency support and ensuring that other infrastructure like energy and water were quickly provided especially to the hospital.
“Accordingly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) commended the state government for its prompt response to the localised outbreak, and thereby checking its spread to other parts of the state with the resultant no further cases recorded so far.”
The SSA media further disclosed that Governor Ahmed said the drop in the federation allocation that the state is experiencing is not showing any indication that it would go soon and thus directed that all due taxes from eligible individuals, political office holders and corporate bodies are collected.
In view of this Akorede said “the Council has directed the Bureau of Lands to begin high impact advocacy both in the media and also in terms of engaging stakeholders to ensure increase compliance with payment of land charges and tenement rates.”
