Proposed $100m Loan by Kogi Govt Will Add More Burden on Generations Yet Unborn – Ogungbemi

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Publisher of The Policy & Lawmakers Magazine, Prince Bolarin Friday Ogungbemi has called on Kogi State Government to discontinue the ongoing process to obtain $100 million loan from World Bank.

Ogungbemi made the call in a press statement issued on Thursday in Lokoja.

The Kogi-based publisher argued that the proposed loan will add more burdens on the people of the state and generations yet unborn.

“On behalf of the entire concerned citizens of Kogi State and in exercising my civic responsibilities and obligation to the people of the Kogi State, I am joining my voice to the many voices of reasoning calling on the Kogi State Government to discontinue the ongoing process to obtain $100 million loan for economic development from the World Bank which was recently defended before a committee of the Senate Committee on Foreign and Local Debts by the Kogi State Commissioner for Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, Hon. Asiwaju Ashiru Idris on 4th February, 2020.

“It is not exaggeration to say that between February 2016 and this day 6th February 2020, the administration of Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello has received almost N380 billion from Federal Allocation Account Committee aside funds received from bailout, excess crude oil, refunds for road constructed by the past governments of the state and Paris Club Refund among others.

“The administration of Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello has been very lucky to have accessed various intervention funds since he assumed mantle of leadership in the state. The revenue accruing to the state government within the period under review is unmatched by any previous regime since the state was created in 1991.

“Despite the foregoing, the people of the state have suffered untold and unprecedented hardship between 2016 and 2019 among all categories of workers and pensioners who were being owed several months of arrears of salaries, before now. It is very sad to note that after all the releases to the state government both workers and pensioners are generally not up to date in terms of salaries payment in the State, while the level of infrastructural development in the state is nothing to write home about between 2016 and 2019. The administration has no records of tangible projects in the state in the last few years.

“It may interest you to note that despite the huge resources accruing to the state in the last four years the development of the state remains a mirage. It was vividly glaring that prudence, accountability, and transparency were all missing words in the dictionary of the leadership in the State. 

“Therefore, in the view of the above, we are calling on the State Government to exercise cautions in its efforts to seek for loan either local or foreign. Other issues are the continuous efforts and attempts by the Kogi State Government to increase the debt profile of the State and manipulate the state funds through several dubious, fictitious and fraudulent transactions.

“Speaking on the salary of workers and pensioners which seem to be the only project executed by the Governor Yahaya Bello administration between 2016 and 2019 after the most prolonged staff screening exercise that lasted for more than three years and the payment of salary which has finally been given to a consultant which has been viewed as generally counter-productive. The administration is hereby advised to return the payment of salaries to the ministries, agencies and departments for effectiveness and to properly ascertain the actual salary profile of the state for prudence and accountability. 

“We therefore, wish to call on the Kogi State Governor to call its functionaries saddled with the responsibilities of the state funds to order because the proposed loan will add more burdens on the people and generations yet unborn. A word is enough for the wise,” the statement read.


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