The 2015 Kogi State deputy governorship candidate to the late Abubakar Audu on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), James Faleke, on Tuesday, accused Governor Yahaya Bello of plundering the Confluence State into debts.
Faleke, a member of the House of Representatives, alleged that the governor borrowed over N35 billion from two commercial banks less than two years after assuming office.
He lamented that despite the high indebtedness and the huge resources that had accrued to the state under Yayaha’s watch, “there is nothing to show for it so far.”
In a statement he personally signed and entitled: “My heart bleeds for Kogi”, Faleke said the profligacy of the governor has plundered the state into a debt that would take between 15-20 years to repay.
He said: “I am deeply constrained to step out once more to raise an alarm over the unmitigated profligacy of Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello leading the state currently reeling under the weight of some burdensome local bank loans with a repayment plan of more than 15 years.”
According to him, rather than find ingenuous ways of liquidating the debt bequeathed to him by the administration of former Governor Idris Wada, the incumbent governor has been raising the state’s debt portfolio.
Faleke said: “The previous government of Captain Idris Wada owed two or three full months salary when he left office and handed over a bank debt portfolio of about N800 million only.
“While the salaries owed the employees of the 21 local government areas under the Alhaji ibrahim Idris tenure were rolled over to the Wada tenure, the council workers local were paid certain percentages of their salaries by local government chairmen then on monthly instead of full salaries.
“The total debt portfolio was in the region of N45 billion, inclusive of pension arrears. With the intervention of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to assist with salary bailout, former Governor Wada requested for the N50 billion to enable him clear the salary mess and another bail out of N10 billion for infrastructural development.
“This N50 billion was to be used as follows:
N5 billion for payment of state salary arrears of two months.
N45 billion for the payment of all local government staff and pensioners arrears”.
“Before the funds were released, Wada had left office. Eventually, N20 billion out of the N50 billion loan request was released to Governor Bello, while the N10 billion for infrastructure was also released fully. So, the total bailout to the state was N30 billion.”
The former governorship aspirant alleged that those on the state payroll were denied their salaries for the 14 months that staff verifications and search for “ghost workers”, lasted.
He described as shocking that no infrastructure was developed in the state from the N30 billion disbursed to the state by the Federal Government.
The statement went on: “Almost simultaneously, the government of Yahaya Bello received monthly allocations for the state and local government areas with an average total sum of over N5 billion monthly for 18 months running now.
“Surprisingly, the state government has gone ahead to take loans of over N35 billion from two commercial banks since his assumption of office.
“The state has also collected over N14 billion reimbursements from the Federal Government for infrastructure and environmental works done by the state under the previous administrations.
“On the heels of these is the Paris-London Club loan refunds the first tranche of which was N12 billion and N6 billion as the second tranche released last week.”
Faleke said he was worried as a critical stakeholder in the North-Central state.
“I am concerned and my heart bleeds for my people. I have come to the conclusion that posterity would be harsh on critical stakeholders in the state, including me, if we fail to talk about the current free fall into a humongous indebtedness that the state is being led to by its current manager.
“For record purposes, Yahaya Bello, to my mind, is a very lucky man. He came to office after we spent our resources to defeat an incumbent. Just imagine the enormous resources as enumerated above and what Kogi should have achieved with a purposeful leadership.
“But alas! What do we get? Many workers (state and local governments) are still being owed a minimum of three months and some councils a maximum of 17 months arrears, despite the allocations running in excess of N200 billion since 2016.”
He wondered why members of the House of Assembly have decided to abandon their oversight functions of monitoring the executive arm.
He said: “May we ask the State House of Assembly which granted Bello approval for the loans what the governor has done with the humongous loan.
“And since it is an open secret in Kogi State that no single road project has been completed among other things, why are members of the Assembly keeping quiet? Kogi people urgently demand answers from these members who are supposed to be their representatives.”
