Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq said at the weekend that the state’s garment factory would be inaugurated this year with a take-off capacity to hire 2,000 direct labour.
Speaking with dozens of All Progressives Congress (APC) youths, progressive social media influencers and some online news publishers on Saturday night, the governor said the idea was to make Kwara a hub for garment production, which could benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) of the United States and other economic benefits.
AbdulRazaq added that other projects of the administration such as the Visual Arts Centre, Adeta Yebumot Road, Ilesha Gwanara and Osi-Obbo-Aiyegunle Road, General Tunde Idiagbon Bridge, among others, would also be inaugurated in the fourth quarter of the year.
He said the N27.2billion bond the administration took was being deployed for what it was meant, adding that the private bond was governed by very strict rules that protected public interest and disallowed mismanagement of any kind.
The governor said the delay in the bond issuance last year and the inflation trends have both affected the pace of the projects, although the challenges are being surmounted.
AbdulRazaq, however, said the administration had completed several projects and implemented many programmes with great impacts across the state, adding that he hardly believed that project inauguration was synonymous with good governance as some Nigerians might appear to believe.