ABIODUN NEJO/Ado Ekiti
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State have once again disagreed on the debt profile of the state. In the run up to the July 14 governorship election in the state, the two parties continue to bicker over management of the debt and projects the borrowings were expended on.
While the PDP said the Governor Ayodele Fayose administration had expended N35.34 billion on servicing of the debts incurred by the Dr Kayode Fayemi administration before it and deductions from statutory allocations from October 2014 till date, the APC wondered how plausible it could be for the PDP government to service N10.5 billion debt with N35 billion.
PDP State Chairman, Chief Gboyega Oguntuase, said borrowings under the Fayemi administration were under many headings, adding: “We all know the N25 billion they borrowed from the Capital Market to finance some projects, but where are the projects? They never built any Governor’s Office. They did not build a new Ojaba Market, they did
not complete their event centre. Even the state pavilion was not fully
completed”.
But the Media Director, Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation, Wole Olujobi, who said Fayemi administration repaid N14.5 billion out of the N25 billion bond, listed projects the bond money was used for to include “roads constructed across the state, schools and hospital rehabilitation, world standard Ikogosi Resort, Ire Burnt Bricks Company, Igbemo Asphalt Plant, water projects, new Government House, Pavilion and Civic Centre among several others”.
The PDP chairman had said the state is servicing the debts inherited from Fayemi’s government with an
average of N1.1 billion monthly, adding that this means about 40
per cent of the state’s allocation is deducted from source monthly.
Oguntuase said documents from the Debts Management Office (DMO) and the Federal Ministry of Finance, agencies in charge of the debts and statutory allocations, revealed that the debts were incurred under several headings.
He added that between October and December 2014, the state’s
allocations had N1.71 billion deducted to service the debts. According to him,
“In 2015, the sum of N7.85 billion was deducted from our allocations.
In 2016, it was N11.30 billion, in 2017, it was N12.12 billion and from January to May this year, the sum of N4.94 billion has been deducted.
“While we have paid off the commercial agriculture credit scheme, we are yet to pay off others and some will run till 2036. The implications of this are many. If we had such a huge sum, we wouldn’t be owing workers’ salaries and more welfare programmes and projects would have been executed by the Fayose administration.”
He listed the headings under which the debts were taken as Contractual obligations, fertiliser, foreign loans, bond, commercial agriculture credit scheme, water project, restructuring of bank loans and excess crude loan.
The PDP leader, while not addressing the claim by Olujobi that a part of the capital market bond had been paid by Fayemi before leaving office, argued,
“We all know the N25 billion they borrowed from the Capital Market to finance some projects, but where are the projects? They never built
any Governor’s Office. They did not build a new Ojaba Market, they did
not complete their event centre. Even the state pavilion was not fully
completed”.
So Olujobi, who insists that Projects done by his boss are verifiable ,fired back: “It is ridiculous for Fayose and his aides to still be peddling inaccurate debts figures after the DMO published the debts taken by Fayose alone in the last three years totalling N56 billion even though he swore and lied many times that he never borrowed one kobo.” As if that was not enough, Fayemi’s aide added another punch: “Fayose was secretly collecting N1.3billion Budget Support Fund for 14 months to pay salary without telling workers that he was collecting the money on their behalf to pay salary. He diverted all to self-serving projects, leaving workers without salaries for between six and 10 months, including failure to pay pensioners”.