Chief Gboyega Oguntuase, the Ekiti State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 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 percent 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 sun 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, fertilizer, 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 urged the people of the state to reject Fayemi and the All Progressives Congress in the coming governorship election and vote Prof Kolapo Olusola of the PDP.
“Don’t let Fayemi hoodwink you. He 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 noted.
He also 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.
Packaged by Omotoyosi Jesuleye
