Kwara Cuts Tertiary Institutions’ Subventions, Disburses N430m

Kwara State government says it has so far disbursed the sum of N430, 388, 359.24 as subventions to seven of the State-owned tertiary institutions in 2016, noting that an outstanding balance of N86,

996,421.7 will be released this month.

The institutions include the Kwara State University (KWASU); Kwara State Colleges of Education in Ilorin, Oro and Lafiagi; Kwara State College of Arabic & Islamic Legal Studies; Kwara State College of

Nursing, Oke-Ode; and the Kwara State School of Nursing and Midwifery, Ilorin.

The State Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Demola Banu, who disclosed this in a statement on Sunday, explained that the government had reviewed the subventions accruing to the institutions by deploying mechanisms to block loopholes and wastages in the system.

Alhaji Banu said that after the review, it became obvious to the government that the internal revenues generated by some of these institutions were enough to meet their financial obligations.

He asserted that this necessitated the need for the State government to cut or stop the annual subventions that were hitherto being collected by the institutions.

Alhaji Banu added that government had stopped subventions to Kwara State Polytechnic and the Kwara State College of Health Technology, Offa as their IGR is enough to guarantee smooth running of the schools.

The Commissioner called on the management of all the state-owned institutions to be more innovative and resourceful in generating revenue for their schools, adding that the situation where

government’s subventions are spent only on recurrent expenditure was not sustainable.

He also said that school authorities should be prudent in the utilization of financial resources in order to make their institutions gain some degree of financial autonomy.