Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has assured residents of the state of his administration’s resolve to focus more on rehabilitation and reconstruction of township roads in 2022 to bring about meaningful development and boost the general economic status of the people.

Fayemi, who stated this on Sunday during his monthly radio and television Programme, tagged ‘Meet Your Governor’, said he would continue to ensure adequate welfare of the people of the state by ensuring that he addressed projects and programmes that would enliven their lives and add values to their welfare.

The governor said the roads that would be urgently addressed are the Ado Ekiti–Iworoko road that was awarded during Governor Oni administration and was abandoned, the Omisanjana – Ajebamdele road; Odo-Ado axis as well as Igirigiri road up to the Ado local government headquarters, saying his government was not oblivious of some of the challenges inside town and promised to address the roads before commencement of rainy season next year.

Other roads already slated for rehabilitation, according to the governor, include Ilawe – Ikere; Iloro-Ijurin-Ayegunle-Temidire road; Ifaki-Esure-Eyio-Awo road; Itapa-Ijelu-Omu road, adding that his administration was also cooperating with FERMA to address and ensure rehabilitation of federal roads.

The governor stated further that his administration also made effort to construct the Ado-Ikere-Akure road but the Federal Government said it would do it despite the fact that his administration had accessed fund for the road project. He explained that the fund was given to the Federal Government, which, had in turn, awarded the road to a contractor.

Fayemi also promised residents of the state that 2022 election would not distract him in his drive to improve the lots of the people through various programmes and projects that his administration had already initiated for 2022.

The governor asserted that his administration has paid over N1 billion to pensioners to ameliorate their suffering as senior citizens despite dearth of fund in the state.

He added that his government had already looked for ways through promissory note with financial institutions to access fund to clear the backlog of gratuity but for one reason or the other, the pensioners rejected the agreement.

“We are not limiting our work to Ado, as we speak, those who live in Ikole can tell you what is happening in Ikole township because we’ve started the reconstruction, the rehabilitation of Ikole township, and if you live in Ikole, right from the State Specialists Hospital to the bye-pass, we’ve already done some work on that.

“The one that is of major concern to most of Ekiti people is the Ado-Ikere-Akure road, that is one road that we’ve spent more time trying to address than any other road. The challenges that we are facing is due to the nature of our federal system. We got money to fix the road, the owner of the road refused, saying that we cannot fix the road, we transferred the money to them, they awarded the contract, there is a contractor on the road as we speak but they don’t have enough allocation from the federal government in the budget in order to accelerate the work. It’s a N30 billion contract, but if you check the 2021 budget, only one N1 billion was put in it for that road.

“I don’t see why there should be distraction, many of the contracts we are talking about have been awarded, so what is required is monitoring. If you take time off, just go to the airport and see what is going on there. I just told you about Ado-Iworoko road and other roads. The contract would soon be awarded.

“We’ve completed Ado-Iyin road, everybody is talking about Ado-Iyin, but we have done Agbado-Ode-Isinbode-Omuo, that is a 31km road; we have done Oye-Aiyede-Ikun-Kwara boundary road, that is a 41km road; we have done Ilupeju-Ire-Ijan-Igbemo, that is a 25km road, then we’ve done also Aramoko-Erinjiyan-Ikogosi, a 14km road, we’ve rehabilitated Ado-Ilawe-Igbara Odo-Ibuji, Ondo State boundary to serve as alternative to Ado-Ikere-Akure road so that the problem that we are encountering in Ikere-Akure road will be ameliorated.

Speaking further, the governor denied that the state collected bailout from the Federal Government to pay arrears of workers’ salaries.

He said what the states got was a bridge finance to fill the hole that has been created by the deduction for the repayment of an earlier bailout.