The Osun State Government has blamed the continued closure of special needs schools in the state on the withholding of local government allocation by the Federal Government and a court order freezing state accounts.
The Commissioner for Education, Dipo Eluwole, disclosed this on Wednesday while addressing journalists at the School for the Handicapped, Osogbo.
According to Eluwole, the state runs 10 special needs boarding schools where students are housed and fed free of charge, with funds for their upkeep sourced from local government allocation that has been withheld since February last year.
He said the situation was worsened by the freezing of state accounts following a court judgment obtained by a contractor over debts owed by the previous administration.
According to him, “government is managing to pay staff salaries but cannot guarantee feeding and welfare of students in the hostels at the moment.
“Everybody knows that Osun State local government allocation has been withheld since February last year, and that is where the provision for the catering of these schools comes from. Accounts of the state government have also been frozen by the bank as a result of debt owed by the previous administration,” he said.
The Commissioner said teachers remain at their duty posts and have pledged to make up for lost time, while appealing to the Federal Government to release the seized allocation.
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