No plan to transfer Kwara’s MDAs, says firm’s boss

Group defends Saraki’s visit to Maiduguri 

CHAIRMAN, Board of Directors, Harmony Holdings Limited, Prof. Halidu Abubakar has dismissed rumours that the Kwara State Government planned to transfer the control of some of its institutions and agencies to the company.

Prof. Abubakar, who is also the Emir of Ilesa Baruba, while dispelling the rumour in Ilorin, added there was no future plan to transfer the organisations to the company, adding that the activities of the institutions were solely the responsibility of government.

Meanwhile, the Abubakar Bukola Saraki (ABS) Leadership Forum has insisted that the recent visit of the Senate President Bukola Saraki and other Senators to the troubled Borno State was his initiative to complement efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari in tackling insurgency in the country.

Reacting to a publication, titled “Bukola Saraki in Maiduguri: Tentative first step for 2019 presidency”, authored by Modibbo Ishaq Kawu, the coordinator of ABS Leadership Forum, Alhaji Usman Bibire Ajape, said that Saraki should be praised for his caring visit rather than being vilified.

Prof. Abubakar explained that the company played dual roles of economic, financial institution and holding government’s companies for business.

He said it is specialised in running government investments. According to him, the government solely owns the incorporated company with 18 subsidiaries and associate companies. He was emphatic that the aim was to revive moribund and non-performing government investments and that there was no relationship between the Kwara State Revenue Service and the Harmony Holdings.

He said the state government was remodeling the service and it was not under the company. Abubakar also declared that the company generated N75 million as dividends last year to the coffers of the government.

Ajape, who insisted that Saraki’s visit was not the making of the Senate President, said that it was a product of the resolution of the Senate during a plenary.

He also said that there could not have been a better way to show the troubled people of Borno State and the North East that the entire nation feels their pains than by the visit of the legislators, which he said would assure them that the Senate would pass legislation that would help restore normalcy in the state.