Oyo State Chapter of Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) has told Governor Seyi Makinde to exemplify transparency by declaring his monthly security vote. It also urged the governor to sack governing councils he alleged of corruptions.
Recall, Engr Seyi Makinde during the inauguration of the newly appointed governing council members of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH, Ogbomoso, stated that his administration imposed Platinum Consultant on all the state-owned tertiary institutions in order to ensure transparency and openness because the Governing Councils lack of transparency and honesty in their financial activities
SPN, in a statement signed by its State Secretary, Com. Ayodeji Adigun, frowned at unaccountability from any public office holder, urging the governor to prosecute governing council members culpable of corrupt practices.
The statement reads in part:
Till this present time, the actual amount of security votes the Engr Seyi Makinde-led government often withdraw from the purportedly limited state fund and how the same security vote which has failed to translate into any improvement in the security of lives and property in the state is being expended has continued to remain in secrecy and opaque. This is despite several public demands and calls for open declaration of the exact amount the Engr Makinde led government withdraws monthly from the State’s treasury as Security votes.
It is in the light of this background that we of the Socialist Party of Nigeria reiterate our open call on Engr Seyi Makinde-led government to publicly declare its security vote and subject the state finances to democratic control and management of the elected representatives of the working people. Until this is done, the regime cannot be said to be truly committed to transparency and openness.
In fact the allegations of lack of transparency that is currently levelled against the Governing Council whose members are dominated by those that are unilaterally selected by the Governor and his government without any effort by the same Government to prosecute or replace culpable members is an indictment on the regime specifically its incapacity to midwife a Governing council that can guarantee an open and transparent running of our tertiary institutions in the state.
Again the argument that the Governing council did not subject the institutions’ IGR under the control and management of the State government suggests that the government is shirking of its responsibility of funding the institutions. As far as we are concerned in the SPN, tertiary institutions are not commercial ventures and therefore not established for the purpose of generating IGR. It is the responsibility of governments at all levels to ensure that education is adequately and properly funded. It is important to state that it is the failure of successive governments in ensuring that the tertiary education is well and adequately funded that is responsible for an unhealthy and desperate drive for IGR which has today made virtually all of the tertiary institutions to abandon the primary purposes of their establishments to pursue IGR.
It is in the light of this SPN reiterates its support for the ongoing strike of workers in some state owned tertiary institutions and urges that the demand of the struggle should extend beyond just the disbandment of the Platinum Consultant to other demands like proper and adequate funding of tertiary education in the state under a democratic management and control. Also, there must be elected representatives of all staff unions and students unions who are subject to recall by their electors on the Governing Councils as well as all decision making bodies.
Only this kind of democratic arrangement can ensure that the financial activities of all these State owned tertiary institutions is transparent and used for the benefit of workers and students. This is because the Governing Council for instance will draw its authority from the rank and file workers and students with the right to initiate a recall in case of any misappropriation.
