Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has disclosed that his administration will focus more on the reconstruction of inner roads across the next four years, other than inter-zonal roads which were the regime’s focus for the first four-year term between 2019 and 2023.
He also said that about 100 of such roads will be reconstructed within the Ibadan zone.
Makinde revealed this in a statement after flagging off a quadrennial stakeholders consultative and engagement town hall meeting for the 2024 Oyo State budget on Monday.
While enumerating some of the achievements of his regime in the last 4 years, the Governor said efforts to link the 7 zones of the state through motorable road construction will be completed at the end of the year.
He also said recruitment exercises for teachers into the state’s service will commence towards the end of the current year.
He however stressed that the focus during his second term as governor is shifting to the rehabilitation of more inner roads across Oyo State to ease commuting and aid the transportation of commuters and agricultural produce to markets.
Also according to Makinde, the mere distribution of palliatives to vulnerable citizens will address symptoms and not causes of economic hardships being suffered on the heels of fuel subsidy removal by the federal government.
While opining that the government must take sustainable actions that will ensure the all-round development of the economy, Makinde said his government is implementing the Sustainable Actions for Economic Recovery (SAfER) model.
His statement: “This afternoon, we kicked off the stakeholders’ consultative and engagement town hall meeting for the 2024 Oyo State budget. Since 2019 when we assumed office, we have been holding these meetings in the seven geopolitical zones of our dear State to get the input of stakeholders on the projects that will be included in the budget.
“In my remarks at the meeting, I talked about some of the major infrastructure projects we have executed so far from previous budgets, especially our plan to link all five zones in our State.
“By the end of this year, we would have successfully linked Ibadan to Oke-Ogun Zone, Oyo to Oke-Ogun Zone, and Ogbomoso to Oke-Ogun Zone while the road projects to link Ibadan to Ibarapa Zone and Ibarapa to Oke-Ogun Zone are still ongoing.
“On inner road projects, I said that having successfully linked our zones, our focus this tenure will be on rehabilitating more inner roads across Oyo State to ease commuting and aid the transportation of goods, especially agricultural produce to markets. In the Ibadan Zone, I said we would be reconstructing about 100 km of roads as these roads were built decades ago, and patching them no longer works.
“I talked about the fact that in Oyo State, we are implementing Sustainable Actions for Economic Recovery (SAfER) instead of just giving out palliatives which only addresses symptoms and not the root causes of the problems. Under SAfER, we are taking sustainable actions that will make our economy grow.
“I also said we are looking to continue to address the infrastructure deficit in our education sector with increased allocation to the sector from the 2024 budget so we can build and renovate a lot more schools. And that the recruitment of primary school teachers would commence by Q4 this year.
“I assured people living with disabilities in Oyo State that our administration would adequately fund their new agency to ensure that their standard of living improves. I stated that under Omituntun 2.0, we would be enforcing existing environmental, traffic, and other laws to sanitize our State.” The statement ended.
