Reforms: Gov Yahaya explains why 29 ministries were collapsed to 21
Chima Azubuike
Gombe State Governor, Muhammadu Yahaya, says he trimmed the number of ministries in the state from 29 to 21 to improve governance, adding that the implementation of single treasury account had helped to block leakages.
Yahaya disclosed this on Wednesday, while delivering his address at a United States Agency for International Development (USAID), funded state 2 state virtual meeting, which had five other governors in attendance.
He said the reforms were based on his drive to deliver on the campaign promises, engender sustainability and quality service.
Recall that the State 2 State project is geared towards strengthening Governance systems (with a focus on public financial management [PFM] and procurement, as well as monitoring and evaluation) related to the delivery of services in key sectors (basic education, primary health care, and water, sanitation and hygiene [WASH]); increasing government responsiveness to citizen needs and priorities.
According to him, “This is in line with the promise we made to our people to deliver on good governance which guarantees democratic dividends to the citizens of our dear State. Some of the Governance reforms that we embarked upon since coming into office include; trimming down the number of Ministries from 29 – 21.
“Re-organizing the State Internal Revenue Generation outfit – which is already yielding positive results. – We had the highest IGR collected in 2020 ever since the state was created in 1996. We introduced the Treasury Single Account in order to block leakages.
We have embarked on biometric data capture of Civil Servants.”
He added that his administration embarked on reforms having realized that there will be no meaningful development without it.
