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The Kwara State government has launched a scheme called Infrastructure Development Fund (IF-K) which the state government hopes would aid infrastructural development and cushion the effect of the economic recession.
According to the state government, the scheme would help ensure that funds are available for infrastructural development. It promised that the era of abandoned projects is over in the state.
At the Council Chamber of the Government House in Ilorin, where the ceremony to launch the scheme held, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed explained that the IF-K was a tool to pool funds for infrastructure projects, optimally leverage on private sector resources for infrastructure development and channel state’s Internally Generated Revenue to directly impact economic diversification and growth strategies.
The Governor said that the fund was designed to ensure maximum quality assurance for asset and services procured by government and encourage broader and deeper interactions with the government and private partners.
“The fund will be financed through a five-billion Naira seed fund and a 500-million Naira monthly contribution from Internally Generated Revenue through an irrevocable standing payment order.
“With IF-K, all ongoing and new projects will be funded to completion before the end of the present administration.
“A board of trustees has been set up to manage and ensure payment to contractors devoid of political interference,” Governor Ahmed told the gathering.
While explaining the scheme to the various stakeholders at government house, the Director-General, Kwara Public Private Partnership and Chief Economic Assistant to the Governor, Mr Yomi Ogunsola, said that the state had joined leagues of sub-nationals that attract partnership for funding capital projects.
“The partners and stakeholders with the government will now rest assured of when to receive their money, as a trustee will be set up to monitor the projects and pay them,” he explained.
Mr Ogunsola described the IF-K model as a chain of systems that would make the state to remain viable, survive the worsening scarcity and improve the state economy.
While lauding the initiative of the state government in ensuring that delay in the payment of funding of projects is removed, a partner, Kola Ibrahim, urged the government to consider how inflation affecting the implementation of projects would be addressed since it was the fault of the government not to pay as and when due before now.
At the ceremony were stakeholders which include industrialists, bankers, captains of industries, traditional rulers, contractors, consultants and engineers.
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