Governor Badaru’s One Year in Office by Abdullahi Umar Chamo

Since the inception of this administration exactly one year ago, it has not failed in continuously executing its development plans and setting its priorities right.

The Governor Alhaji Mohammad Badaru Talamiz ( MON, mni) led administration has shown that with a strong commitment and positive attitude towards governance, a lot can be achieved by Government regardless of the enormity of challenges in the system.

While many would have crumbled under the weight of the financial burden inherited by this Government, Governor Badaru and his team of highly innovative and passionate cabinet members have tackled the challenges by creatively managing the contractual commitments and financial liabilities bequeathed to it .

It should be noted that as at 29th May, 2015, the volume of liabilities and ongoing capital projects was at the time more than the entire annual budget of the State which was N100bn.

The volume of financial liabilities inherited includes billions of Naira indebtedness to contractors and service providers, payment of arrears of pension contributions, depleted retention accounts and other contractual liabilities dating back to 1990s. There was also the N2bn MSME development loan which was diverted for payment to favoured contractors, which the State Government is now unfortunately, servicing. To make matters worse, revenue receipts from the Federation accounts- the major source and most stable income source has continuously taking a downward slide. From an average monthly receipt of about N5bn in 2004, this dropped to about N3bn early 2015 and N2.5bn early this year. All these have posed grave fiscal challenges, which require time and painstaking planning and financial programming to be squarely addressed.

Apart from the dwindling fiscal resources, some of the other challenges which the government was confronted with at inception includes high cost of governance; declining quality of public service delivery particularly in the education, health and water supply sectors; inadequate and ineffective economic empowerment programs for our teeming youth and women. The greatest challenge however has been the sheer size of resources required to make a desired impact in terms of the quality and scope of the provision of critical public services. This is especially so for such areas as safe drinking water, functional education at all levels, effective and affordable healthcare services and provision of sustainable livelihoods for all people.

Despite all the daunting challenges expressed above, the Governor Badaru led administration has worked assiduously to ensure that our dire fiscal situation does not degenerate into a financial crisis, and that Government is able to effectively meet its recurrent obligations and sustain service delivery at optimal levels.

This can be attributed to clearly defined objectives driven by focus on strategic areas with immediate and long term quick wins for the people.

I will In Shaa Allah post the progress so far made from each and every ministry.

Abdullahi Umar Chamo
National Chairman
Badaru Kawai Volunteers
solvetor@gmail.com
08067323407