Gombe State Governor vows to consolidate on two years of Democratic gains

The Gombe State Governor, Muhammadu Yahaya has reinstated his commitment to consolidates on the gains made during his two years in office, with a pledge to serve all people fairly and justly.

The Governor said his administration remained committed to executing meaningful projects as dividends of democracy across the state.

He made the pledge in his address during his 2nd Anniversary celebration.

Governor Yahaya said ”his government would provide 2,500 affordable and social housing programme, a state-of-the-art secretariat complex to accommodate ministries, departments and agencies of government, as well as upgrade the State Assembly Complex to a befitting status.”

“With the database on unemployment that we have generated, we shall replace all vacancies to be created as a result of the ongoing biometric attendance exercise being implemented across the state in our commitment to providing equal opportunities for our unemployed youth,”  he said.

The Governor stressed that his government would before the end of the tenure, deliver on all the promises made to the people and be responsive to their needs and yearnings.

Disbursement of soft loans
Governor Yahaya announced that the re-capitalized Bubayero Microfinance Bank would soon begin the disbursement of soft loans to enterprising youths and women.

This he said, would enable them to engage in small scale businesses and that efforts would be double to enhance the security of lives and property.

According to him, technology would be used to achieve the vision, by harnessing new thinking and energies of the youths to consolidate on the gains made.

 “Already, we have commenced work to establish the Gombe State Citizenship and Leadership Training Center in Boltongo and the Agricultural Entrepreneurship Training Center at Garin Tafida that will train not less than 3,000 of our youths annually on various skills and vocations,” Governor Yahaya stated.

Compulsory Healthcare scheme
On the gained recorded, he said while his administration had established the Gombe State Contributory Healthcare Scheme, GoHealth, to reduce financial barriers to accessing essential health care.

“GoHealth has so far enrolled over 25,000 poor and vulnerable persons under the Basic Health Care Provision Fund so as to enjoy free access to basic health services,”  he stressed.

In the last two years, the Gombe State Government has taken bold steps to address the pressing development challenges across the state.

The achievements recorded are the introduction of the Treasury Single Account, the Bureau for Public Service reforms, which facilitated the introduction of Biometric attendance and facial recognition system for the public service, thereby tackling the ghost worker syndrome.

 “These reforms have started yielding positive results as evidenced by the state’s excellent performance in the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) programme thereby attracting over 14 million USD reward for the State from the World Bank. 

”Furthermore, we have successfully improved our Internal Revenue Generation by 25% in the 2020 fiscal year and by 62% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the preceding quarter in 2020. Equally, we have strived to reduce the inherited liabilities by paying off gratuity and pension arrears to the tune of about N2.4b thus committing an average of 100m monthly out of the 14 b inherited from the immediate past administration,” Governor Yahaya explained.

Education sector
He recalled declaring a state of emergency in the education sector immediately after he took over power, by increasing the capital allocation of the sector by over 60% in 2020 and 2021.

“This has translated into the construction, renovation and equipping of 584 classrooms in 156 schools across the state. Equally, over 30,000 units of classroom furniture have been provided to various schools and informal learning centres… This is in addition to the provision of sporting facilities, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) infrastructure, laboratory equipment and assorted instructional materials.  We have mopped up over 300,000 out-of-school children and established 676 non-formal girl-child and Almajiri learning centres through the Better Education and Service Delivery for All project (BESDA),” Governor Yahaya said.

He said the initiatives had led the state into recording a 4.4% increase in the performance of the students in senior school examinations, WAEC, from 22.4% in 2019 to 26.8% in 2020 for candidates that obtained a minimum of 5 credits including Mathematics and English.

Healthcare
In healthcare, the Governor said the holistic approach adopted to revitalise the healthcare system, one primary health care centre had been renovated in each of the 114 wards and provided with basic equipment, solar power and borehole, render 24-hour service to the people at the grassroots.

Governor Yahaya stated that the Specialist hospital Gombe had been upgraded to a modern health facility, which led to its full accreditation by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, to train intern doctors, while plans had reached an advanced stage for the upgrade of 1 general hospital in each of the senatorial districts.

He explained that his administration had constructed over 350KM of roads network under our Network 11-100 initiative, aimed at construction at least 100KM of roads in each of the 11 LGAs, while arrangements had been concluded for the take-off of the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project.

”Arrangements have been concluded for the take-off of the 1,000 Muhammadu Buhari Industrial park at Dadin Kowa, home to the 40 MW hydroelectric power plant and huge irrigation potentials that our State is endowed with, intended to attract local and international investment, create jobs to our teeming youth and boost the Gombe State economy and Internally Generated Revenue,” Governor Yahaya added.

Mercy Chukwudiebere