Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has said the huge debt profile inherited from the immediate past administration which took N25 billion bonds from the Capital Market and also took N31 billion commercial loans, is responsible for the poor financial condition of the state and the challenges faced in the payment of workers’ salaries.
Fayose, who stated this while reacting to the no-shift- ground stance of the striking workers,said about N1.2 billion is being deducted monthly from the state’s allocation to service the loans which the Kayode Fayemi administration took in the course of their four years in the saddle.
The governor opined that if the N1.2 billion being deducted is added to the state’s monthly allocations,his administration will not owe workers.
Speaking through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi, in Ado-Ekiti on Sunday, Fayose took a swipe at the All Progressives Congress (APC) which he said had been gingering the labour to remain adamant on the issue of the strike.
He said it was quite unfortunate that the Fayemi administration also diverted the,N850 million meant for the Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board and thereby led to the suspension of the state from the Universal Basicc Education Commission programmes since 2012.
Fayose said he was surprised that when Fayemi took the loans which now made payment of workers’ salaries difficult, the labour did not kick against the moves.
The governor said the strike had been politicised because of his criticism of the bad policies of the Federal Government and his fight against tyranny.
He wondered why some states where workers are owed more salaries than Ekiti are still witnessing the understanding of the situation by labour.
Explaining further, the governor said when he assumed office on October 16, 2014, he negotiated with the creditor commercial banks for moratorium of nine months which enabled him to pay salaries regularly.
He said when the moratorium expired, coupled with monthly deduction of N1.2 billion and dwindling monthly allocations, three months allocations became grossly insufficient to pay a month salary, subventions and other services.
Fayose said the last administration inflated figures of the monthly IGR for political reasons giving the labour wrong information and false hope.
The governor said, “A state like Ekiti without any industry and Fayemi Administration would post that it realised between N600m and N700m monthly from IGR whereas in the actual sense Ekiti IGR had never gone beyond N300m or N350m monthly.”
Fayose said he was surprised that the labour which praised him for transparency was now blackmailing him as if he had kept Ekiti money somewhere.
He continued, “Immediately I was sworn in, I constituted a committee which shares allocations coming to the state. I made the Head of Service to head the committee. The labour leadership are members of the committee. I only sign recommendations brought to my table by the committee. I wonder why the labour leadership is now pretending not to know the finances of the state.
“The labour is asking me to go and look for money to pay them. From where? Ekiti has nothing to stand as collateral. What I don’t have, I cannot give. You don’t give what you don’t have. From day one, I made open the finances of the state because I had envisaged a period like this.”
Fayose advocated for a law which would prohibit any governor from borrowing beyond his tenure, saying,” During my first term, I did not borrow a dime to run the state, I paid salaries on 22nd of every month. When I was going in October 2006, I left N10.4 billion in government coffers.
“Therefore, the labour should hold the Fayemi Administration responsible for the economic woes in the state and stop castigating me.
“As a responsible governor, the state cannot be financially buoyant and I will refuse to pay the workers. A child cannot ask a good father for fish and the father will give him stone. I have been sounding the warning about the nation’s economy since last year. When the monthly allocations started to nose dive, I took labour leaders into confidence and explained the situation to them. We even agreed to go round the 16 local governments last year where we told everybody what was happening.”
The governor explained further, “For the N25 billion bond Fayemi took from the Capital Market, the state pays over N600 million monthly to service it and we will pay till 2022. On the bond money, there is an irrevocable standing order for the monthly deductions, the Federal Government has no power over that. It was the commercial loans they took that were converted to bail-out funds by the Federal Government and we pay over N300 million to service the debts monthly and that will subsist till 2036.
“Also, they left debts on fertilser, vehicles purchased for different reasons and groups and other commitments for which over N100 million is deducted from our monthly allocation. If these funds are not deducted and we have them at hand, our situation would have been better than this.
“Some people are saying what about our IGR? The former administration, in the bid to impress, gave false figures on the IGR. I don’t need to lie. The civil servants are the ones helping the state to collect IGR, so they know what is happening. IGR is paid into accounts in 13 banks and at the end of the month, the funds are pooled together in one bank. The Accountant-General office is there for anybody to cross-check the figures and you can also Google it.
“When the issue of bail-out came up, I took the consent of workers before we applied and we complied with all the instructions given us by the FG. Only recently, anti-graft agencies such as the ICPC and the EFCC assessed how all the states utilised the money, Ekiti State was rated the best. The N9.6 billion sent to the state government and the 16 local governments was judiciously used. What is still remaining for the FG to send to us, I told workers and the people of the state about that. They have not sent it.
“It is amusing that those who plunged the state into huge debt are now the ones playing the ostrich. It is like the our fathers saying ‘they are the ones who invited the thief to come and steal and also the ones who alerted the owner of the item to be stolen of the thief’s presence’.What we are experiencing now is due to our national economy that is in poor state and the huge debts left behind by the previous administratiion and we may experience a worse scenario in the next few months if care is not taken.
“I appeal to workers to know that Ekiti State is our own and that there are states with worse situation as per salary payment and their workers are still on their jobs. Some states which earn oil derivation funds are not better than us. I appreciate Ekiti workers and I urge them to also see reasons with me,” the governor said.
