From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
The Kebbi State Government has said that it will spend about N4.5 billion on the construction of primary and junior secondary schools in the 21 local government areas of the state.
Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Professor Sulaiman Khalid stated this during a two-day stakeholders’ workshop organised by SUBEB in Birnin Kebbi. It was designed for SUBEB technical staff, council senior project officers, directors and education secretaries. He said: “The state government is going to spend over N4.5 billion to construct primary and junior secondary schools in order to improve the atmosphere of learning environment, the scheme and skills of all teachers. Virtually, every teacher will be affected.”
Khalid explained that the purpose of the workshop was basically to intimate the officials involved in direct monitoring and supervision of the major contracts to know their obligation and to discharge same accordingly.
“The contractors have already finished the procurement process and are about to mobilise to the site. They should know that the state government must have value for the money, and we will not condone any shoddy contract.
“We are going to mobilise our lawyers to ensure that whoever fails to execute the contract according to the bill of quantity will not be paid,” he said. Earlier, the Head of SUBEB Physical Planning Unit, Alhaji Muhammad Bala, had lauded the governor, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu for constituting a board headed by a Professor with proven integrity. Kebbi State has been rated as one of the states having a smooth partnership with UBEC with over N17 billion injected in basic education in recent years that paved the way for construction and renovation of more than 3,000 schools, provision of over 150, 000 furniture, pipe borne water and numerous schools equipped with ICT centres with no single abandoned projects in the state,” Bala said.