Gov. Bala has changed the face of Bauchi State in one year - Eng. Gumau Sanga.

By: Abdulrahman Kirfi.

The Bauchi State Budget Monitoring and Public Procurement Agency says the administration of governor Bala Mohammed has awarded projects in critical sectors of the economy worth over 45 billion naira within the first year of the administration. Speaking with newsmen on the one year anniversary of the governor, the chairman of the agency, Engineer Joshua Sanga said the over seventy projects awarded followed due process and were issued with certificate of no objection. Sanga pointed out that, the agency is fully involved in the award of the projects and it will monitor them to ensure their execution in line with procurement act.

According to him, the state has made a lot of progress and compliance in the execution of project across the state and in all the identified sectors. “Ideally each and every project in the excess of one million naira in the state ought to come to this office before even being awarded, we have to check the price, we have to check the award process, the procurement process, the right contractor was given the job or not and to ensure that the job is done. “Since the advent of this administration, we have a record of over seventy contracts awarded valued at about N45 billion naira and this is unprecedented as there is no government that came between 10 to 11 months that awarded a contact of such amount in a short time.

His Excellency, the governor needs to be highly commended on that and Bauchi people need to appreciate the gesture, if you look round Bauchi, you will see new projects of over 500 classrooms built or renovated, you look at the roads on going, there are alot of projects awarded by this administration and the governor is a very workerholic person, he ensures that he keeps us on our toes to ensure that jobs awarded are being done as the law permits on us and agreed by the contractors, so the governor is doing a lot of projects and we are deeply involve in the award and the execution of such projects.

The Chairman said the mandate of the agency is specifically in the areas of procurement of government projects, ensure that money budgeted for the execution of projects is judiciously used and to ensure the value for money is being driven from each and every project awarded by the government. 70 to 80 percent of government money apart from paying of salaries goes to execution of projects, so the role of this office is price intelligence, we have to check prices to know weather its okay or we add or subtract where necessary to make sure there is value for every single Kobo, the other role of the office is also monitoring, once a contract is awarded and the job is being executed, its the role of this office to at least go out and check weather the job is done rightly, that is major the role of this office, budget monitoring, price intelligence and procurement of government projects.

He said to ensure execution of projects in line with international best practices, Governor Bala Mohammed has engaged the services of Engineer Emeka Eze, a former engineers who was Director General in the Bureau of Public Procurement to work out modalities of revamping the agency. “The governor is about to celebrate his one year in office, the Akuyam road is about forty five percent completion, Yalwan Duguri to Burga it’s a very big project, I was there just last week and it’s thirty percent, NITEL and Raji quarters is one hundred percent completed even hospital road Azare and Tafawa Balewa road are hundred percent, Sabon Kaura is seventy percent completed, alot of roads, even recently some have been awarded like the Hajj Camp is being constructed so that Muslim pilgrims will have a place stay during Hajj activities and alot of hospitals have been renovated, when you look at the blocks of classrooms as I say over five hundred newly built and other renovated, even water projects, over seven hundred boreholes have been awarded through partnership with UNICEF and RUWASA and is still with the backing of the state government alot of communities now have water to drink, so the projects are going on very well even some are also being awarded as at now especially with the coming of this COVID-19 alot of attention had been turned to the health sectors but not totally because we don’t want other sectors to suffer.