Kwara State government says it has so far disbursed N430,388,359.24 as subventions to seven state-owned tertiary institutions in 2016, adding that an outstanding balance of N86, 996,421.7 will be released this August.
BusinessDay reports that beneficiaries include the Kwara State University (KWASU); Kwara State Colleges of Education in Ilorin, Oro and Lafiagi; Kwara State College of Arabic and Islamic Legal Studies; Kwara State College of Nursing, Oke-Ode, and the Kwara State School of Nursing and Midwifery, Ilorin.
Demola Banu, state commissioner for finance, who disclosed this in a statement issued on Sunday in Ilroin, said government had reviewed subventions accruing to institutions by deploying mechanisms to block loopholes and wastages in the system.
Banu said after the review, it became obvious to the government that the internal revenues generated by some of these institutions were enough to meet their financial obligations.
He asserted that this necessitated the need for the state government to cut or stop the annual subventions that were hitherto being collected by the institutions.
The commissioner added that government stopped subventions to Kwara State Polytechnic and Kwara State College of Health Technology, Offa, since their internally generated revenue was enough to guarantee smooth running of the schools.
He therefore called on the management of all the state-owned institutions to be more innovative and resourceful in generating revenue for their schools, adding that the situation where government’s subventions were spent only on recurrent expenditure was not sustainable.
He noted that school authorities should be prudent in the utilisation of financial resources in order to make their institutions gain some degree of financial autonomy.
