By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi
Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has expressed worries that despite the efforts of the state government to free resources and employed recently additional 100 doctors into its services, the new employees no longer take up the appointments.
He recalled, “In the past we used to be the best in terms of production of human capital, we are now lagging behind, we have only very few doctors, even where we freed resources as I promised and employ 100 additional doctors, they didn’t report”.
The Governor who was speaking while giving out free cars to district heads and chairmen of local government councils in the state Friday, said the government is putting efforts to improve the doctors’ welfare by renovating the hospital and other health facilities, in addition to the provision of housing facilities.
He told the traditional leaders, “These doctors are our own, we want to come through you, not only through the Head of Service, so that they can come and contribute their quota to the development of Bauchi State”.
“We have been able to reduce maternal mortality rate, we have been able to produce or renovate a lot of our primary health centres, so that we can bring healthcare services to the people in rural areas, but we have problem with the human capital”.
Senator Bala Mohammed explained his administration has executed numerous development projects across the state, especially in the education and health sectors where the state government declared state of emergency.
He called on emirs and district heads to assist the state government by propagating the need for enrolment of both pupils and students in primary and secondary schools respectively.
“We are calling on Your Royal highnesses and the District Heads to help the government, propagate the need for enrolment. In some of these schools, the pupils are not there, especially in our secondary schools”.
The Governor revealed that the state government has improved enrolment in its primary education by providing more than 4, 000 additional classrooms, as it is also working hard to ensure that all other schools are renovated and provided for the pupils.
“We have boarding schools, we have every facility there and yet the enrolment at the end of the day, if I look through from the records and data from the Ministry of Education, we have a long way to go”.
The Governor therefore, drew the attention of traditional rulers in the state to the fact that Bauchi state has the highest number of out-of-school children in the country with a figure of 1.4 million children.
