By Dare Enitan

A look at Kwara State’s budget performance document for the third quarter of 2024, has shown that the state spent over N6 billion for the construction of a new headquarters for the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service.

The document reviewed by SolaceBase shows that the sum of N3.2 billion was spent between July and September on this project.

This singular expenditure is more than what the state spent on the construction/provision of hospitals/health centres in the state.

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The line item construction/provision of hospitals/health centres gulped N1.7 billion between January and September, a far cry from the N6 billion spent on building a new Internal Revenue Service headquarters.

The money spent on building a new office for the KWIRS is more than the N890.5 million spent on construction of state rural roads in the nine months period of January to September 2024.

In fact, rehabilitation and repairs of public schools took N2.2 billion, and rehabilitation of hospitals/health centres stood at N479.035 million.

On the ministerial level, the capital expenditure for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development stood at N3.3 billion for the first nine months of 2024, meaning that the state spent more on a new office for the Internal Revenue Service than capital expenditure for the Agricultural sector.

The capital expenditure for the environment ministry stood at N1 billion.

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While N8.1 billion was spent on health ministry capital expenditure, the amount spent is just N2.1 billion above the singular expenditure of N6.1 billion for the KWIRS office project.

Only N711 million was spent on the state water resources capital expenditures.

There have been concerns over the spate of expenditures incurred by states, especially in relation to the impact of such expenditures on development at the level of critical sectors across states.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 75% of households in Kwara State lack access to sanitary facilities, another 42% lack access to clean drinking water.

There are 860,000 persons said to be poor in Kwara State, according to the multidimensional poverty index.