Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari to consider a waiver of the N7.150bn counterpart fund required to access the backlog of UBEC grants accrued to the state.
The Governor made this request in a meeting with the President yesterday at State House, Abuja.
Previous administration of AbdulFatah Ahmed had in 2013 diverted the UBEC grant provided to it, leaving the state slammed with a blacklist which was recently solved by the AbdulRazaq administration.
Giving an account of the talk points with the president in a statement, Governor AbdulRazaq revealed he had, along other requests, pleaded with the President to consider a waiver of the counterpart funding requirement.
According to him “Kwara State has not accessed UBEC grant since 2013 after the State was blacklisted following certain malpractices. Our administration paid the fine of N450million and has since commenced the process to access the grant from 2013 – 2019.
“Given the economic realities now, it is difficult for the State to obtain the N7.150bn counterpart funding required to access the grant. We requested for Mr President to kindly consider a waiver for this requirement, as is being pushed by the Nigerian Governors’ Forum.”
