The Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has reiterated his commitment to promoting functional education in the state with the vote of N12.5bn to education sector in the 2018 fiscal year budget presented to the state House of Assembly.
Education sector gets (12,504,590,629.00) 14.07 while the health sector has (2,611,873,680.00) 2.94 per cent per cent of the total N173, 980,083,007 budget christened “Budget of Enduring Legacy”.
Aregbesola said his administration has constantly accorded education the deserved attention since he assumed office seven years ago, adding that it has not relented in its avowed resolve to revamp the education sector.
The governor stated that his administration was determined to bring complete transformation to the educational sector, and it had taken giant strides to re-construct and re-structure the education sector in order to restore quality and promote functional education at all levels in the state.
Speaking with our correspondents in a telephone interview on Sunday, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy in the state, Mr Adelani Baderinwa explained that “Education, as we all know, is the bedrock of development of any nation because it makes people easy to lead, impossible to blind-fold and difficult to enslave.
“Based on this, any serious government that is desirous of transforming the state into an economic haven will not joke with education.
“In realization of the pivotal role of the education sector, a sum of N12.504 Billion or 14.07 per cent of the total capital budget was allocated in the 2018 draft Budget to take care of the various programmes and projects earmarked for execution.”
According to Baderinwa, Aregbesola’s administration has completed the construction of six Model High Schools with six others nearing completion stage, 20 Elementary Schools and 22 Middle Schools.
The commissioner averred that Aregbesola would remain irrevocably committed to the joint ownership and co-funding of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso and the College of Health Sciences, Osogbo with the Oyo State Government.
He said the current administration will continue, as usual, to meet our financial obligations to the higher institution in the 2018 fiscal year within the limit of available resources.
On the budget provision for the health sector, Baderinwa said: “provision of qualitative health care for our people remains a top priority of the government.
“The Aregbesola’s administration has since inception recorded remarkable achievements in the areas of infrastructural development, improvement in the health equipment status in our hospitals, and distribution of medical consumables and capacity building through sponsoring health workers on further studies.
“In line with the Aregbesola’s promise of restoring healthy living as contained the six Integral Action Plan, the present administration is prepared to continue to save our people from avoidable deaths due to emergencies, poverty, and inadequate health facilities.
“Health, as we know, is wealth. The government will ensure increased accessibility to qualitative health care services in all parts of the state by completion of all on-going projects.
“Specifically, in 2018 fiscal year, government will ensure that the renovations and upgrading of the nine State Hospitals in the State are fully completed.”
According to Baderinwa, “In 2018, this administration will continue to provide essential drugs and medical consumables in all our hospitals at subsidized rate. The ‘O’ Ambulance Scheme, no doubt, has been used to save a lot of lives in situations of emergency in the State.
“More efforts will be made in the New Year to make the scheme more functional to achieve the purpose.
Packaged by Rahman Salami
