OYO State Governor Seyi Makinde, has stated that he will put his cabinet in place in the next two weeks, saying that names of other commissioner-nominees would be sent to the House of Assembly for screening and confirmation soonest.
The governor also maintained that his administration will focus on tourism as one of the key sectors that will drive the state’s economy.
According to him, the government will decouple the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism as part of efforts to enhance the optimal performance of the existing ministries.
Governor Makinde, who gave these indications in his official Newsletter, dated 29th June, 2023, said the Ministry of Information will now be headed by one commissioner, while another commissioner will head the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The decoupling, he said, would bring the number of Ministries in the state to 18 as against the 17 that existed during the first tenure.
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The governor equally noted that in line with his promise, the Light-Up Oyo streetlights, which went off for a few weeks, have now returned to being active.
He explained that the project will, for the time being, continue to use diesel generators until it will finally fall back on the ongoing hybrid power system – the 11MW Independent Power Project (IPP, which is ongoing) as the main source of power, with gas generators and inverters as a backup.
Makinde said: “For me, having sent the first batch of commissioner nominees to the Oyo State House of Assembly, I know I now have just about two weeks to send the names of the rest of the nominees and have my cabinet in place.
“This promise will be kept just as all other promises we have made to the good people of Oyo State.
“You may have noticed that the street lights are coming back on as promised. We will continue to use the diesel generators to power the street lights for now so that our people can get the benefits of this infrastructure while we work on finally moving them to the tribrid power system – the 11MW Independent Power Project (IPP, which is ongoing) as the main source of power with gas generators and inverters as a backup.
“One of the other things we are going to do is to ensure that all our ministries function optimally. As you already know, Tourism is one of the sectors that we will be focusing on during this tenure to drive our economy.