The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has tackled Governor Ayodele Fayose over claims that the fresh Paris Club refund will be insufficient to pay more than one month salary.
The party 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.
The governor during his media chat programme on the state media had raised the alarm that feelers from the finance ministry indicated that the Paris refund to states would be reduced by half.
But reacting in a statement on Monday, the state APC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, claimed Ekiti State’s share was N9.6bn in the table of Paris Club refunds to all the 36 states released by the Federal Ministry of Finance.
He accused the governor of distorting facts in order to misapply the money for selfish reasons”.
Olatunbosun noted 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 Federal Government.
According to him, only statutory allocations are subject to deductions over state’s debts.
Fayose in his usual manner has during his last media chat denied that Ekiti share of the Paris Club Refund is N9.6bn but N8.8bn which he further reduced to N4.4bn in his usual mathematical abracadabra to divert the money once again.
“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.”
Explaining that the funds available to the state, for now, were enough to pay the backlog of salaries and other allowances, Olatunbosun added that the Paris Club figure of N9.6bn was intact apart from the regular monthly allocation of N1.9bn after deductions.
“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.”
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