Kaduna state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Monday said his administration has fulfilled all the electoral promises made to the people in 2015.
The governor disclosed this in a statewide broadcast to mark his second year in office.
“In the last two years, we have done as we have promised. We have steadily implemented the Restoration Programme. No segment of our campaign platform has been left untouched,” he said.
The governor said despite recruiting over 7000 personnel within the last two years, the state’s 2016 recurrent expenditures showed a N5bn reduction in personnel cost to N21.8bn from N26.8bn in 2015.
He said in 2016, the Kaduna state government raised N23bn as taxes, levies and interest earnings, describing it as the highest ever in the history of the state.
In education, the governor said his administration raised primary school enrolment from 1.1m in July 2015 to 2.1m by September 2016, adding that 29% more students sat for WAEC in 2016 than in 2015.
“We renovated 400 of the 4250 public primary schools in the state before we decided to move to a programme of school reconstruction to accommodate the growth in population.
“We have broadened access, improved teacher quality and enhanced school facilities. We are emphatic that basic education shall remain free for the first nine years. We abolished levies, provided uniforms and fed 1.5m pupils every school day from January to July 2016. And to further expand access, we have passed a law to abolish street trading and hawking,” he said.
On health, the governor said he had pledged to improve access to healthcare and to improve health outcomes for people, adding that his government has secured accreditation for Barau Dikko Hospital as a teaching hospital while the Doka hospital on the Abuja-Kaduna Road is being transformed into a trauma centre.
On infrastructure, the governor said his government is fixing 414km of intracity roads, while over 2500 solar street lights have been installed.
The governor said this is in addition to encouraging farmers in the state through several initiatives. He said the security situation in southern Kaduna has improved.
El-Rufai said in the remaining two years, his administration will be initiating the BRT scheme, complete more water projects, build and equip more schools, strengthen the health sector, build more modern markets and neighbourhood centres and activate more of the investment projects.
