Lagos PDP seeks probe of state’s daily spending on COVID-19 patients

• State pledges continuous support to farmers,
• Unveils 26 locations of Eko City farmers’ market
Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has urged the state’s House of Assembly to probe the claim by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu that not less than N1 million is being spent on each COVID-19 patient on daily basis, especially in severe cases.

In a statement yesterday, Publicity Secretary of the party, Taofik Gani, faulted the presentation by the state government on monies spent on COVID-19 patients, describing the presentation as “embarrassing, humungous, unreliable and extortionately-induced.”

The party noted that the incredible figures reeled out as costs of treating such patient was capable of increasing the already created doubts that the state government was not honest about the facts of the pandemic and had commercialised the circumstance.

The party, therefore, urged the lawmakers to set up a committee of the whole Assembly to look into the accounts relating to the COVID-19 and indeed similar supposed emergency reliefs, trust funds, interventions and others. The PDP also urged the relevant anti-corruption agencies to question the state’s Commissioner for Health.

Meanwhile, Lagos State Government, yesterday, said that it would continue to provide platforms and support for farmers to enable them grow and improve their output and produce.

The state’s Acting Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya, stated this while on tour of the Eko City Farmers’ Market, Ileya Edition, held across 26 locations with the goal of enhancing the upgrade of the agricultural supply value chains in the state by connecting all the value chains with their markets.

Olusanya, who visited two of the markets at Opebi Primary School, Ikeja and St. George’s Boys Primary School, Falomo, stated that the Eko City Farmers’ Markets was decentralised to hold in no fewer than 26 public schools in the state to provide more access to the consumers to shop and the farmers to get better patronage.

The commissioner added that one of the objectives decentralising the market was to rebuild the process of the local food economies by providing a cost-effective, retail sales prospect for local food producers in the state.

Olusanya gave the list of local councils where the decentralised Eko City Farmers’ Markets would be set up as Mushin, Alimosho, Surulere, Ikeja, Apapa, Lagos Mainland, Eti-Osa, Ifako-Ijaiye, Lagos Island, Kosofe, Oshodi-Isolo, Epe, Badagry, Ikorodu and Agege.

According to her, the markets would be located in Ilupeju Primary School, Town Planning Way, Ilupeju; Papa Ajao Primary School, Ladipo Street, Mushin; Eleja Primary School, Mushin; Local Government Primary School, Idimu; Meiran Community Primary School, Meiran; Adisa Bashua Primary School, Off Adelabu and Local Progressive Primary School, Mbah Street, Surulere, among others.

She, therefore, advised all residents of the state to take individual responsibility during this period by acting positively so that the chain of COVID-19 transmission could be broken in the state.