Olumide Lawal
The Kwara State Government has approved N6.07 billion for an electrification project tagged, “Light up Kwara” aimed at constructing street lights covering 78 km in strategic places across three senatorial parts of the state.
The State Commissioner for Energy
Abubakar Garba hinted this at a press conference in Ilorin on Tuesday.
The conference which was jointly addressed by his counterparts Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, Musa Yeketi, Commissioner for Information, Mahmud Ajeigbe and Governor’s Senior Assistant on Media and Communications, Dr Muideen Akorede was to avail the media on key decisions taken after by the state government after its monthly State Executive Council Meeting.
According to Garuba, the state government has approved N6.07 billion contracts for the phase 1 of the light up kwara project.
He stated that the project would cover 78 kilometre major roads in Ilorin while the second phase would be extended to Omu-Aran, Offa road and Moro.
Yeketi on his part informed that the state government has uncovered a syndicate of five top civil servants in the state, comprising three serving and two retirees who connived and illegally recruited 1,420 teachers in the state’s teaching service commission (TSC) against 449 approved by the government and vowed to sanction them.
The Education Commissioner who blamed the erring officers for fate of the beneficiaries of the illegal recruitments recalled that the state’s government in 2014, approved recruitment of 150 teaching staff and 206 security guards and also 93 teaching staff in 2015.
He said “the approvals were for specific subjects specialists in Mathematics, English Language and other Science subjects’’ regretting that the commission went ahead to recruit ‘‘all sort of persons’.
‘‘It was done in connivance of five principal officers; two of them have retired and the law will take its course on them .For those who are still in service, the civil service rule will take its course accordingly’’, he said.
He explained that due process was also not followed in the recruitment of the approved 449 staff which informed the state government’s directive on regularising their appointment.
