The Ekiti State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Gboyega Oguntuase, has said the huge debts incurred by the Kayode Fayemi administration from 2010 to 2014 has so far cost the state N35.34 billion in servicing of the debts and deductions from statutory allocations from October 2014 till date.
This, according to him, means the state is servicing the debts with an average of N1.1 billion monthly, adding that it also means about 40 per cent of the state’s allocation is deducted from source monthly.
Oguntuase, who said this in a statement in Ado-Ekiti on Sunday, said documents from the Debts Management Office 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.
“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 Ayodele Fayose administration.
“The debts are under these headings: Contractual obligations, fertiliser, foreign loans, bond, commercial agriculture credit scheme, water project, 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 leaving office.
“Under commercial agriculture credit scheme is their YCAD programme that failed woefully. The 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 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,” he said.
Oguntuase has alleged that police in two vans arrived the state during the week parading the nooks and cranny of Oye Local Government Area to arrest the council Chairman, Hon. Sunday Alonge, and the PDP chairman of the local government, Mr. Ojo Sunday, with an order to ‘silence’ them.
This was contained in a statement by the Ekiti State Publicity Secretary of PDP, Mr Jackson Adebayo, in Ado Ekiti.
But responding, the Media Director, Kayode Fayemi campaign outfit, Wole Olujobi, said : “It is ridiculous for Fayose and his aides to still be peddling inaccurate debts figures after the Debts Management Office published the debts taken by Fayose alone in the last three years totalling N56b even though he swore and lied many times that he never borrowed one kobo.
“Again, we admit that Fayemi borrowed N25b to be defrayed within seven years and records are there in the Debts Management Office that Fayemi paid back N14.5b of the debts, leaving the balance of N10.5b before he left office on October 16, 2014.
“All the projects that benefitted from the bond are verifiable. They are the roads constructed across the state, schools and hospital rehabilitation, world standard Ikogosi Resort that has again been looted, Ire Burnt Bricks Company, Igbemo Asphalt Plant, water projects, new Government House, Pavilion, Civic Centre that Fayose has abandoned, among several others.
“If the official debt figure were as stated above, how did they come about N35.34b to service the debt of N10.5b?
“Fayose was secretly collecting N1.3b 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.”
