By Salif Atojoko
Gov. Uba Sani of Kaduna State says his government has reduced cost of governance to save money for provision of education, healthcare and infrastructure.
The governor said this while addressing State House correspondents after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu on Friday.
He said his government had to make serious adjustments by reducing the cost of governance.
“We have not bought a single vehicle for any government official in Kaduna State, and that has really helped us.
“We’ve reduced the allowances of all our commissioners, advisers, even my humble self, I have been receiving half of my salary. Since I became governor of Kaduna State, I’ve not had a single new vehicle.
“So, we have tremendously reduced the cost of governance, and that’s the way to go if we really want to address our problems and improve on major areas of education, healthcare infrastructure,” he said.
Sani also said Kaduna State had made a lot of progress in the area of security, and had not recorded any major security problem in the last few months.
He attributed the achievement to robust collaboration with security agencies.
“We also increased the level of synergy between the security agencies, government and other relevant stakeholders that have been helping the state in terms of intelligence gathering and sharing.
“So, we made it clear that security is the responsibility of every citizen of Kaduna, not only the security agencies, and that has really helped us to address the problem.
“I was in Birnin Gwari last month, and I was informed by the Emir that in the last few months we have not had a single incident of insurgency or banditry in that local government,” said the governor.
Sani said he also briefed the President on the progress of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) the state government signed with Huawei of China.
“I briefed him about the progress we’ve made. A committee has been set up, and we have been able to achieve the first phase of the MoU.
“In the area of education, we have reduced the number of out of school children from 680,000 to about 300,000 by building about 62 secondary schools, and 2,340 classrooms in primary schools.
“We have also been able to reconstruct, remodel and equip about 12 secondary healthcare centres in Kaduna State,” he said.
The governor added that the state bought about 100 Compressed Natural Gas buses, which he invited the President to inaugurate at a later date. (NAN)
Edited by Chinyere Joel-Nwokeoma