Ekiti State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Gboyega Oguntuase, on Sunday alleged that the debts incurred by the Kayode Fayemi administration from 2010 to 2014 had so far cost the state N35.34billion.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the PDP had claimed that the N35.3 billion was used in the servicing of debts and deductions from statutory allocations from October 2014 till date.
However, the former Governor and immediate past Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Fayemi swiftly denied the allegation, describing it as a deliberate falsehood, sponsored by Gov. Ayo Fayose to smear his image as well as cover up the failure of his government to deliver on his electoral promises.
Fayemi, who reacted through the Media Director of his Campaign Organisation, Wole Olujobi, said the campaign of lies was a sign of frustrations from the Fayose camp.
Fayemi said Fayose and his party decided to embark on character assassination because of his rising political profile and the imminence of the PDP candidate’s rejection at the coming gubernatorial poll.
“It is ridiculous that Fayose and his aides can still be peddling inaccurate debt figures after the Debt Management Office(DMO) had published the debts taken by Fayose himself alone, in the last three years which has amounted to N56billion, even though he swore and lied many times that he never borrowed a kobo.
“We admit that Fayemi borrowed N25b to be defrayed within three years and records are there at the DMO that Fayemi paid back N14.5billion of the debts, leaving the balance of only N10.5billion before he left office on Oct. 16, 2014.
“If the official debt figures are as stated above, how then did they come about spending N35.34billion to service an outstanding debt of N10.5billion”? Fayemi queried.
NAN reports that the state PDP boss had in a statement issued in Ado Ekiti, raised the alarm that by calculation, the N35.34billion sum already paid to service debt allegedly incurred by Fayemi, meant that the state was servicing the debts at an average of N1.1billion monthly.
He added that it also meant about 40 percent of the state’s allocation was being deducted from source monthly.
The PDP Chairman claimed that documents from the 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 N1.71billion deducted to service the debts.
“In 2015, the sum of N7.85billion was deducted from our allocations. In 2016, it was N11.30billion, in 2017, it was N12.12billion and from January to May this year, the sum of N4.94billion had 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.
“The debts are under these headings: Contractual obligations, fertiliser, foreign loans, bonds, commercial agriculture credit scheme, water projects, restructuring of bank loans, excess crude loan among others.
“For instance, under contractual obligations is the vehicles and buses they purchased for traditional rulers and various groups that they did not pay a kobo before they left office.
“Under commercial agriculture credit scheme is their YCAD programme that failed woefully, they also took money for the rehabilitation of water scheme and the money they borrowed for Ero Dam rehabilitation just went down the drain
“We all know the N25billion 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 Oja Oba Market, they did not complete their Event centre. Even the state pavilion was not fully completed,”
“Fayemi is the reason Ekiti State is under financial burden. He plunged the state into debts and can’t point to any tangible project he executed while in office. His administration also got the highest revenues from the Federation Account in the history of the state,” he claimed”.
Oguntuase who asked the electorate not to vote for Fayemi in the coming poll, said members of the public could get the details of the debts on the websites of the DMO and the Federal Ministry of Finance and in their offices.
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