By Dipo Olowookere
The education sector in Oyo State is about to get a major facelift with the commencement of the implementation of 217 projects across the state.
Already, a meeting has been held with contractors for the construction of 58 blocks of classrooms, 10 perimeter fences; drilling of 44 boreholes, procurement of 3 lots of sports equipment/facilities, the supply of furniture and renovation of 62 blocks of classrooms.
The projects are to be supervised by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board (OyoSUBEB).
Last week, the agencies read the riot act to contractors, urging them to abide by the laid down standard for project execution and deliver high standard projects in the state within the timeframe.
Chairman of OyoSUBEB, Dr Nureni Adeniran, noted that due to COVID-19 pandemic and some technical issues, the board shifted the date for its bid opening exercise twice, which eventually came up on October 8 2020.
He thanked Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State for the prompt payment of counterpart fund from the state government, which gave the state an edge to quickly draw the 2019 funds from UBEC.
“It is worthy of note that today’s gathering would not have come up without the pro-activeness of the state government, through the prompt release of counterpart fund amounting to N1.5 billion to complement the matching grant of the equal amount released by the federal government through UBEC, for the implementation of the 2019 FGN-UBEC/SUBEB Intervention Projects,” he said.
The educationist informed the gathering that the 2018 FGN-UBEC/SUBEB Intervention Projects awarded in January 2020 have reached an advanced stage.
“About 98 per cent of the projects have been delivered to the benefitting schools and these projects have added greater value to the academic activities in the schools,” Mr Adeniran added.
He, therefore, urged the contractors not to renege in the high standard set by the state government, as the present administration has zero-tolerance for non-performance.
The Chairman said the state government has set a time frame for the categories of projects in the state, urging them to be upright and efficient in the execution of the projects.
“Construction of Model Schools must be delivered in 24 weeks; construction of a block of classrooms must be delivered in 16 weeks; while construction of ECCDE Pilot Centres; and block of 3 and 4 classrooms must be ready in 12 weeks,” he said.
Also, time-frame for construction of perimeter fence is 4 weeks; renovation of blocks of classrooms is 8 weeks; the sinking of the boreholes is 2 weeks; procurement of furniture is 6 weeks while procurement of sports equipment/facilities is 2 weeks.
He, therefore, said the state government expects that the contractors will adhere strictly to the time frame for each of the categories of projects, adding sternly that the time-frame was not negotiable.
Modupe Gbadeyanka