Oyo Hired Consultants to ensure Transparency in Tertiary Institutions’ Activities, Says Makinde

By Kemi Olaitan

Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, has said his administration is committed towards resolving the issues surrounding the strike action embarked on by some state-owned tertiary institutions, within the next one month.

He explained that the decision to engage Platinum Consultants, became imperative to ensure transparency and accountability in the system.

According to the governor, his administration’s desire to improve the quality of education in the state, has led to its scaling up the subventions to tertiary institutions up to 100 per cent from the 50 per cent, which the last administration raised it in the last days of the government.

The governor who spoke shortly after inaugurating the Governing Council of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, said the government had to engage Platinum Consultants to look into the Internally Generated Revenue( IGR) activities in the tertiary institutions.

Makinde maintained that the government resorted to hiring consultants because financial activities in the institutions were opaque and that the institutions were not ready to embrace transparency in their transactions.

According to him, “Let me also use this opportunity to talk about the lingering crisis at the Polytechnic Ibadan. Though most of the other tertiary institutions that embarked on the strike action have backed off, it is remaining only the polytechnic.

“The students were at the secretariat the other day to make their grievances known and we listened to them. But I must make this very clear; we would not have got into this situation if those schools’ governing councils did their jobs transparently and honestly.