We have no business with your bailout funds, APC tells Kogi Govt
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has
described as blackmail the decision by
the Kogi State government and the PDP
Governors’ Forum to blame political
interference for the delay in releasing
bailout funds for the state.
In a statement issued in Abuja on
Tuesday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the
party said it had no business with the
release or otherwise of the bailout funds
to Kogi state.
”This accusation is in line with the new-
found propensity of the PDP to blame
everyone but itself for the woes that
have befallen the party in recent times.
If the opposition party is not accusing
the APC of colluding with the judiciary
over the election petition cases, it is
accusing the ruling party of colluding
with the CBN over bailout funds. This is
sickening,” it said.
APC said the Kogi State Government
should go and sort itself out with the
CBN, if indeed it wants to get the bailout
funds.
”Our investigations have revealed that
the Kogi State Government has not been
able to justify the over 50 billion Naira it
is asking for as bailout funds. It is
curious that the chunk of the funds
which the state is asking for, over 40
billion Naira, is for the payment of the
salaries of Local Government workers.
”The state is saying the backlog of
salaries owed to these categories of
workers dates back to 2011.
How can that be, when Nigeria was not
even broke in 2011? How can the state
be owing Local Government workers
when it has been collecting 2.2 billion
Naira monthly in allocation for Local
Governments, amounting to over 100
billion Naira in four years? What
happened to the Local Government
allocations collected by the state if it is
owing LG workers since 2011?
”The figures and explanations tendered
by the Kogi State Government to justify
the request for 50.8 billion Naira in
bailout funds are not tenable, especially
because only 4.9 billion Naira of the
amount is for the payment of workers in
the state civil service.
”Nigerians should bear in mind that the
bailout funds are not for anything
beyond the payment of workers’ salaries.
The onus is therefore on the Kogi State
Government to justify its request for
50.8 billion Naira, and to assure the CBN
that the state is not seeing the funds as
slush money. It is the failure to do just
that, rather than any so-called political
interference, that has denied the state
government of accessing the funds so
far,” the party said.
APC reminded the PDP Governors’
Forum, which has been quick to jump
into the fray without doing its own due
diligence, that the initiative to bail the
states out of their inability to pay
workers’ salaries was at the instance of
the Buhari Administration, and meant to
provide much-needed relief to the
workers.
”Therefore, it does not make sense for
anyone to accuse the ruling party or an
agency of the same government of
frustrating the release of the funds. Kogi
State has no one but itself to blame for
the quagmire in which it has found itself
over the bailout funds,” the party said.
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