The former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola has said that his administration in the state did not plunge the state into any debt.
Specifically, he stated that his government put the necessary mechanisms in place in order to offset the N18b credit facility obtained to finance the 2009 budget as backed by the state’s House of Assembly.
Speaking during a radio programme in Osogbo on Monday, Oyinlola maintained that if not for the court judgment, he would have paid all the N18b loan before the expiration of the tenure of his office.
His word: “I did not have it in mind to put Osun state in any debt before I left. It was during the time that the state House of Assembly led by Adejare Bello with 15 Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) legislators and 11 All Progressive Congress (APC) members argued that we should borrow to finance the capital projects in the 2009 budget.
“So before the court sacked me, I had spent N10b out of the N18b, I paid N2.4b out of the loan and N7.6bn was left. I would have returned the money before my tenure expired in May 2011 but for the judgement.
“I borrowed to build Osun State University (UNIOSUN) and I paid the debt in 11 months.”
Oyinlola, while reacting to claims that Governor Rauf Aregbesola is maltreating workers in the state, said during his administration he has wanted to slash workers salaries or downsize them so as to cushion the effects of the global economic meltdown which started since 2008.
He explained that the intervention of the top echelon of the state civil service made him to drop the idea.
“When we were there, N2bn was coming from Abuja, we had N500m as our Internally Generated Revenue, We had N2.5b in total. From the N2.5b, N1.6b was for the workers salary, plus the pensions and the rest, we were using over 70 percent of our revenue to foot the wage bill.
“So, I decided to call a state stakeholders meeting to see if we could slash salaries or retrench workers, and decided that the recommendations from that meeting should be taken to the state House of Assembly for ratification.
“When the Head of the Service knew about our idea, he pleaded that we should not downsize or slash salaries but give them the opportunity to work towards increasing the state IGR which I agreed to before we left office.”
Packaged by Bunmi Oladejo
