The Ekiti State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress,
APC, on Monday described the state Governor, Ayodele Fayose as a liar over
claims that the fresh Paris Club refund will be insufficient to pay salaries of
civil servants in the state.
The Publicity Secretary of the party in the state, Taiwo
Olatunbosun said all the governor’s claims to labour leaders that the fresh
fund is half of the last refund was false, misleading and an attempt to
misappropriate the money for selfish reasons.
Claiming that the state’s share of the Paris Club refund
released by the Federal Ministry of Finance was N9.6bn, Olatunbosun alleged
that Fayose was “distorting facts in order to apply the money for selfish
reasons.”
He stated that the refund was neither subject to any
deduction over debts nor having any local government component that would make
the cash shared to Ekiti State to be less than N9.6bn as published by the
Fayose’s administration.
According to Olatunbosun, “Fayose hinted during the
programme that what Ekiti got as refund from the Paris Club could barely pay a
month salary because of deductions.
“We challenge Governor Fayose over this false claim as the
Paris refund is not subject to any deduction. It is the state’s monthly
allocation that is subject to deduction while the local government allocation
is also not subject to deduction.
“It was Ekiti State Government that borrowed money from the
Paris Club and not the local governments and so refunds cannot be made to local
government.
“The N9.6bn refund is exclusively for the state government
to pay salary and so any other claims by Fayose to brainwash the workers to
deny them their entitlements once again is not only wicked and selfish, but
also a fraudulent practice that Fayose has elevated to an official policy to
short-change the state and her people at all times.
“Another cash of monthly N1.3bn budget support fund, including
Internally Generated Revenue of about N300m is there and this is separate from
the local government allocation, thus bringing total cash this month alone to
N13.1bn.”
By Seun Opejobi
