The Kwara State Government said it did not spend a kobo on any ranch project between 2022 and 2023.
The state government made the clarification in its response to an online medium (Sahara Reporters) report that it has expended N800million on the Malete Ranch.
In a statement signed by the commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mrs Oloruntoyosi Thomas, the government added: “The only related expenditure in the said years was N29,000,000 spent in 2022 for essential services (topographic survey, environmental impacts assessment, and drone flights across the Malete site) at the Malete new site for the Kwara Special Agro Industrial Processing Zone project. This expenditure is dated 28 February, 2022.
“The closest volume of government’s expenditure in that category was the payment on 9 October, 2023 of N779,506,155.08 counterpart funds for the Special Agroprocessing Zone (SAPZ).
“SAPZ is an ongoing five-year project funded by the African Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank. At the moment under SAPZ, there are four Agricultural Transformation Centres (ATCs) in Baruten (Okuta), Kaiama (Kaiama), Ifelodun (Olodan), and Asa (Afon). All the ATCs serve as production and aggregation centres, while Malete is the industrial hub.
“The description in the budget for this expenditure is ‘Federal Government Contributions for Livestock Development (State Govt)’. These livestock programmes included L-PRES and SAPZ, a component of which ranching/grazing reserve is. This is normal in the national charts of accounts format. It is disturbing that the medium refused to mention SAPZ (the real basis for the closest expenditure) in its report, even when not a dime was actually spent on ranch.
“This clarification is for innocent members of the public who may have been misled by the mischievous publication. The intention of such publications is neither to inform nor encourage healthy debates around public expenditure, but to give negative portrayals of anything Nigerian and its government.
“In this age of disinformation and cultural imperialism that are often carefully packaged in flowery ways, the public is urged to be wary of these supposedly ‘reputable’ platforms who encourage lazy and unethical practices and conjure up different things to undermine governments and public servants.”
