Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State has clarified the loan portfolio of his administration, saying that it has borrowed N26 billion since he assumed office in 2011.
The revelation was made today by the governor in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital, when he gave a financial report of the state, which he stated, would be made public to the people so that they would know how their tax was being spent.
“When we came on board, the IGR of this state was around N730 million monthly and I can boldly tell you now that we have increased it beyond one hundred percent as we are now raking in N3.2 billion monthly. We are not stopping at that.
It is not only the money from either Ita Osu or Kuto market that matters, all the big industries in the state must pay what it is expected of them. That means we are still going to improve on the IGR,” Amosun said.
On the loan collected by the government, the governor said his administration has been prudent in its expenditure and would not take what would later become a problem for the state.
“Let me state here that since we came on board on 29 May, 2011, all the total money borrowed by this administration is N26 billion and as I am talking to you today, we have paid back a total sum of N10.7 billion, both the principal and the interest.
“When we came in, what they handed over to us was N49 billion. Even, there were many cheques they signed on their last day in office which I stopped and if we add everything together, we have about N87 billion as what we met, excluding the debts like the arrears of the local government staff salary, pensions, etc. As we speak today, our debt is N25 billion, which, as an accountant, I believe is still okay.
“We know our onions; we would not take what would create problem for our people in future; we are not like those people who want to take us into complete bondage. As it is now, I am going to write the House of Assembly to take, probably, a loan of N15 billion,” Amosun revealed.
The governor urged the people not to listen to the mischief makers who are not sure of all the rumours they are peddling around, assuring the citizenry of his administration’s determination to spread the dividends of democracy to all the nooks and crannies of the state.
“They don’t know what they are saying and ignorance is disturbing them. Several statements have been made on the financial status of Ogun state but I can tell the good people of this state without fear or favour that the true picture and figure of our financial position is what I have just told you and I am promising you that it will be made public for everybody to have access to. It will be published,” Amosun
assured.
assured.
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