Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has said that his administration did not commit the state to any financial
institution in form of bonds and commercial loans, pointing out that
“no loan can be granted without the approval of the Debt Management
Office (DMO) and the Federal Ministry of Finance and that these two
offices should publish details of any loan taken by his
administration, including the banks that granted such loans.
The governor, who said the Governor-Elect, Dr. Kayode Fayemi,
was already preparing excuses for his impending failure, declared that
“unlike him (Fayemi) who was not courageous enough to answer questions
on his administration before a duly constituted probe panel, Governor
Fayose is not afraid of being probed either by the State or Federal
Government.”
Special Assistant to the governor on Public Communications and New
Media, Lere Olayinka, said on Sunday, in a reaction to claim by Fayemi
on the State’s debt that “Ekiti State indebtedness stands at N59.5
billion that was either directly inherited from the Fayemi’s
administration or incurred as a result of the loans restructuring done
at the instance of the federal government and the Federal Economic
Council.”
He gave the breakdown as follows; Commercial Bank Loan,
N2,087,788,065.28; CBN Grant for Water Project, N163,450,000; Excess
Crude Account Backed Loan, N9,545,173,472.78; Bailout,
N9,083,761,215.40; FGN Bonds, N18,226,699,707.18; State Bonds,
N3,484,469,345.51 and Budget Support, N16,869,000,000.
“Particularly, the N10 billion grant released from the Excess Crude
Account for capital projects was fund that should normally accrue to
all States.
“Most importantly, we admit that the State workers are being owed four
months’ salary and this was occasioned by the monthly deductions from
the State allocation as a result of huge debt incurred by the Fayemi
administration. Even the N9.5 billion bailout fund was for the payment
of the arrears of salaries and deduction left unpaid by the Fayemi’s
government.”
Olayinka accused the federal government of deliberately refusing to
release legitimate funds belonging to Ekiti State to the Fayose
government, having concluded to rig the governorship election for
Fayemi.
He said N22.6 billion refund on federal roads construction, N2.1
billion arrears of Budget Support and N14.1 billion Paris Club refund,
making N38.8 billion, which should have been paid to the State since
June is billed to be released in November to Fayemi’s government.
He admonished Fayemi to use the N38.8 billion to clear the arrears of
workers salary, which would have been paid by now if the federal
government had released the fund, on the basis of which Governor
Fayose promised to clear arrears of workers salary before leaving
office.
While declaring that there was no way he (Fayemi) can equal what
Fayose’s government did in the last four years and that ground was
already being prepared for his disastrous brief tenure, the governor’s
spokesperson counselled Fayemi to face the task of defending the
mandate those who held on to legitimate funds belonging to Ekiti State
helped him to steal instead of threading the usual path of deceiving
the public to cover up his impending failure.
