By Our Reporter
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to transparency and accountability in the implementation of $500 million Human Capital Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity (HOPE) and Governance Programme in the state.
Governor Sanwo-Olu, in his address at the public sensitisation and presentation of Lagos State’s significant strides in the ongoing implementation of the HOPE programme activities in Governance, Primary Health and Basic Education held on Thursday at the Lagos House Marina, said his administration from inception laid emphasizes on transparency and efficient management of investments for citizen benefits.
The initiative is a $500 million facility supported by the World Bank, the Federal Government and it's being implemented across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to address bottlenecks in service delivery, particularly in the health, education and governance sectors.
Governor Sanwo-Olu expressed satisfaction with the strides recorded so far, noting that the state had adopted the HOPE framework to strengthen its capital management systems, while shifting from input-based spending to outcome-driven performance.
"So for us in Lagos, this programme is about people, it's about our city, about ensuring that the child has access to the right learning materials and the mother can receive quality care at our primary health institution without heavy financial burden.
"And to ensure that public resources are managed in a way that every Lagosian can see, they can understand, and they can go on to trust.
"Today's event is, therefore, not only about implementation, policies, and programmes, it is about showcasing practical results, giving public awareness, and encouraging every citizen to be resilient, to take full advantage of this opportunity.
"So this initiative is an advantage to all our children and their families. Because of the growth of employment, the most important objective is to make sure that government works better, government plans better, government spends better and government can deliver better outcomes for all its policies and for its people.
"Under this framework, literacy has made a remarkable impact. We have sustained economic performance consistently above 80% in our year-on-year success rate," the governor stated.
On governance, the Governor Sanwo-Olu noted, "Citizen-Friendly Project Publications strengthens our medium-term expenditure framework and it helps us expand our digital platforms including the legacy project model and other focused financial management which enables our citizens to track government spending and predict what we are doing in real-time.
"We also have an advanced workforce at the local government level through the domestication and adoption of the national type of accounts and the project facilitation workforce at 20 local government levels and we have supported it by continuous training and the provision of tools to ensure that we are sustainable at a high level of finance."
He added that in the area of primary healthcare, the administration had continued to scale up access and quality healthcare, saying that it now hast over 330 functional primary health care centres across the State.
"Many of these have been rehabilitated or upgraded under our ongoing health sector reforms, including optimized centres that are giving more efficient and community-focused care. Some of these primary health centres are ensuring that more residents and especially women and children can receive timely and quality care," the governor said.
In his terse remark, World Bank Specialist, Engineer Akin Onimole, said his focus, as a procurement specialist in the World Bank, often lies in the mechanism of development systems, the transparency and efficiency with which resources were converted into results.
‘"However, what we are celebrating today goes beyond mere processes; we are celebrating the tangible impact of reform on the lives of the people of Lagos.
"The HOPE programme was designed to tackle the systemic bottlenecks that often hinder service delivery in the education and the health sectors. From a procurement and systems perspective, Lagos State has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to the programme's core mandate," Onimole said.
Earlier, the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Ope George, said, the core objectives of the HOPE project is to strengthen financial and human resource management and improve service delivery in health, education, and in governance.
"So it's a $500 million national initiative using the programme for result instruments where funds are dispersed often to achieve this possible linked results.
"And it serves for us as a vital system for us to drive public financial management reforms, transparency and data-driven governance.
"We've ensured that the prudent allocation of public resources have been provided to enable the framework to support our broader human capital objectives," the commissioner said.
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