The government of Ondo State on Wednesday distributed eleven vehicles among selected Ministries, Departments and Agencies in the state and promised that it will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of its avowed commitment to improve governance and bequeath to the citizenry best practices that would make its civil service the cynosure of public administration in Nigeria.
Chairman Implementation Committee of the World Bank Project in the State and Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Akin Adaramola at the commissioning of the vehicles for selected MDAs stated that the overall objective of the State’s Public Sector Goverce Reforms and Development Project (PSGR&DP) was to improve the quality, transparency and accountability of public financial management and human resource management systems with a view to improving governance in the state.
He stated that the provision of the vehicles at a time federal allocation to the state was dwindling go a long way in complementing government efforts at ensuring that the development witnessed in the state was sustained, adding that it would also help in freeing resources which government could use to attend to other pressing needs of the state government.
The government cautioned the benefitting MDAs to take good care of the vehicles noting that the PSGR&DP was a collaborative effort between the State Government and the World Bank and that the fund for the project was a credit which would be repaid by the state in future.
“I will therefore like to charge the implementing MDAs to ensure that the State derive maximum benefit from the project so that posterity will not condemn us. The vehicles are not meant to be used for any other purpose outside its mandate.
“Let me caution the beneficiaries that PSGR&DP has the right and power to withdraw the vehicles if they misused,” Adaramola stated.
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Finance, Chief Yele Ogundipe, stated that "the commissioning is a clear testimony to the fact that the partnership is working out the way the State Government wanted it to be."