Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has responded to claims by the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that his administration inherited over N10bn from the former administration.
In a statement made at a press conference in Ilorin, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor Rafiu Ajakaye, disproved that the current administration has kept over seventeen billion naira of the bond the government recently accessed in a secret bank without using the same for any projects.
“While it actually applied for N35bn bond and was adjudged healthy enough to get even more, the administration of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq actually accessed a total sums of N27.260bn in 2021. This fact is everywhere in the media. The projects for which the bond is being used for have been repeatedly reported in the media, and they include the long-commissioned 11.1km Osi-Obbo Aiyegunle road, the ready-for-commissioning garment factory, General Tunde Idiagbon Flyover, Sugar Film Factory, which has Nigeria’s first-ever sound stage, Innovation Hub, Visual Arts Centre, long-commissioned Gbugbu International Market (Phase 1), Industrial Park Eiyenkorin (Phase 1), Ilesha Baruba and Osi campuses of the Kwara State University, Yebumot Adeta Oloje Road, 33km Ilesha Gwanara Road, Shea nut processing factory (Kaiama), rehabilitation of water works including Offa, Erin Ile, Asa Dam, and Afon, etc, and a couple of other township roads.
Responding to the claims, Ajakaye stated that the best way to unveil the truth of the PDP is to interrogate their different statements on the same issue of how much they left in the coffers on 29th of May 2019.
“The best way to know the real characters of the PDP is to interrogate their different statements on the same issue of how much they left in the coffers on May 29, 2019.
“On May 29, 2019, former Governor Abdulfatahi Ahmed said in his handover note read by the Head of Service that the administration left a total sums of N5bn in the treasury which, according to them, was the tax refund from the Federal Government that the EFCC froze. Of course, the exact amount that came to Kwara State was actually N4.8bn as we have consistently mentioned.
“On January 20, 2023, as it desperately churned out lies, a PDP chieftain and former commissioner said in an interview that their administration left N8.5bn in the treasury.
“Today, October 10, 2023, at their press briefing, the PDP chairman Hon. Babatunde Mohammed said they actually left over N10bn in the treasury. Which of these three conflicting figures is right? He, of course, conveniently omitted that their administration left a public debt of at least N100bn, including the dollar component.
“These mind-boggling inconsistencies and barefaced falsehood typify the character of Kwara PDP yesterday and today, and it is the reason Kwarans are so glad to have rejected them back-to-back in two electoral cycles.
The Chief Press Secretary further reiterated that the former Governor Abdulfatahi Ahmed revealed in his handover note that the administration left a total sum of five billion naira in the treasury which was the tax refund from the Federal Government frozen by the EFCC.
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