Femi Akinwumi, the Chairman of the Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board has revealed that the state government has awarded contracts to the renovation of 250 infrastructural projects across schools in the state.
According to him, several thousand other furniture projects under the 2024 Universal Basic Education Commission/SUBEB are also part of the proposed project.
The SUBEB boss, in a statement in Ado Ekiti on Saturday, spoke in reaction to a viral video of a school, St Westley Primary School, Omuo Ekiti in Ekiti East Local Government area, having a block of classrooms flooded following the blow off of the roof by a rainstorm.
He dismissed insinuations that the government has turned deaf ears to the request made by the schools for the rehabilitation of dilapidated classrooms and critical infrastructures.
“The issue of the damaged building has received Government’s intervention. Pupils and teachers had been evacuated from the affected building to new classrooms within the school since the last academic session.
“The affected building had been marked and listed for renovation under the 2024 UBEC/SUBEB intervention projects and also proposed to UBEC under the Direct Intervention Funding programme for 2025.
“The board is already investigating what the pupils were actually doing in the school building that has been abandoned since last year as shown in the viral video. Whoever is found culpable would be sanctioned.
“Renovation works in the school and over 250 infrastructural projects including several thousand other furniture projects under the 2024 UBEC/SUBEB have been contracted and will soon commence. The school is one of the public primary schools in the area having multiple infrastructures including new buildings, toilets, furniture and perimeter fence.
“Rainstorm is a natural occurrence. The state government has taken proactive steps to safeguard school buildings from the effects of rainstorms by enforcing the use of high-gauge aluminium roofing sheets in SUBEB buildings in the past four years.
“This drastically reduced the number of school buildings affected by rainstorms in recent years,” Akinwumi said.