Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State has described the allegations of mismanagement of funds against his administration by the state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr Damishi Sango, as a malicious, ridiculous diatribe and mere diversionary tactic employed by the opposition in the state to score cheap political points.
Sango had on Tuesday alleged, among others, that the Lalong-led APC government received over N115 billion as revenue from the Federation Account and bank loans? and diverted the funds to private use.
Reacting, the governor, through a statement issued on Wednesday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mark Longyen, said the PDP chairman’s allegations were aimed at diverting the people’s attention from the findings of the recently inaugurated Judicial Commission of Inquiry he set up to investigate all the financial transactions of the immediate past PDP administration of former Gov. Jonah Jang.
The statement read: “The attention of the Plateau State government has been drawn to media reports credited to the state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Damishi Sango, who at a press conference on Tuesday, reportedly made wild and largely unsubstantiated allegations cum fabrications, ostensibly to cast negative aspersions on and maligning the person of our indefatigable governor, the Rt Honourable Simon Lalong, and the APC-led administration in the state, just to score cheap political points.
“Ordinarily, the APC government would not have dignified Sango and his PDP cohorts with a response because even the least informed Plateau common man knows that the allegations are just wild allegations that, by and large, put logic on its head and curiously devoid of documentary evidence, and so should be ignored by all right-thinking individuals.
He, however, stated that the reply is to set the records straight.
He said “It is indeed not difficult for any discerning mind to decipher that the timing of the PDP press conference, which is coming barely a week after the Governor inaugurated a 6-member Judicial Commission of Inquiry to probe the immediate past PDP government of former governor Jonah Jang over alleged multi-billion naira profligacy, is a mischievously orchestrated opposition falsehood and diversionary tactics aimed at unwittingly gaining public sympathy, and settling political scores with the governor over the probe.
“The good people of Plateau State should, therefore, not allow themselves to be deceived, used and dumped by these same leaders of a party, which is best known with the acronym of “People Deceiving People,” whose obnoxious agenda is a sinister move to divert attention from the multi-billion naira looting sleaze that the PDP and its leaders bequeathed to Governor Lalong, which the Judicial Commission of Inquiry he recently constituted is about to unearth and make public?.
He said the allegation of Sango that the Lalong administration has received and squandered N115bn is “malicious and ridiculous” and a “clear demonstration” of how the PDP twists fact and figures to paint the Lalong administration black.
Describing the action as a “pull him down syndrome” and attempt to “give a dog a bad name in order to hang it.”
He said “The net payments accruing to Plateau State from the Federation Account on a monthly basis, after the multi-billion loans taken by the Jang administration are deducted, are available on the website of the Federal Ministry of Finance, and one would have expected Sango and his PDP co-travellers to visit the site and confirm the figures, which indicate an average monthly allocation of less than N2 billion, which can hardly settle Plateau’s wage bill of about N1.5 billion, before going to press, but they deliberately failed to do that.”
He also said the allegation that the APC-led government “spent N4.5 billion on the purchase of luxury cars for selected government officials “at a time pensioners and civil servants were being denied their pay package” is false.
He declared that “The records are there to prove that the Lalong administration inherited a paltry N96 million sum and had to take a bank loan of N4.5 billion in June 2015 for the purpose of settling a part of the eight months unpaid salaries of striking workers and nearly one year of pension arrears, and not to purchase exotic official vehicles as claimed.” Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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