Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, discloses a debt burden of $587 million, N85 billion and 115 contractual liabilities inherited from his predecessor, Nasir El-Rufai, causing financial constraints and difficulty in paying salaries.
, announced he inherited a debt burden of $587 million, N85 billion and 115 contractual liabilities from the administration of his predecessor, Nasir El-Rufai. It wasn’t a casual disclosure but a cry from the heart about how lamenting that the massive debt had hobbled the state’s federal allocation and made it virtually impossible to pay salaries. Sani’s disclosure has set off a slew of questions from the state’s stakeholders.
Indeed, days before that, labour leaders had threatened. They wanted what the President Bola Tinubu had promised: their wage awards. If he did not pay, the state would be shut down. Other states were now basking in the new boon. Why were they going to be out of the loop of that stingy prosperity? Strikes therefore loomed. The governor could sit and watch or he could act.
2) Even though the work has not been completed, contractors have been issued certificate of completion, which means they should be paid what they are asking for, that is the sum of N115 billion. 6) A month to handover to the new administration of Uba Sani, then Governor El-Rufai obtained a loan of N20 billion and tied it to the state’s Internally Generated Revenue . This deprives the state of internally generated revenue until the loan is paid off.
10) N10 billion from the Central Bank of Nigeria for nomads to establish a ranch and a community. Much of it abandoned. A company Arla was supposed to obtain its dairy from them for processing and marketing. Skipper, an SPV associated with Jimi Lawal, was coordinating this on behalf of the state government.
“We really wanted to go on industrial strike,” said NLC Kaduna State chairman Ayuba Suleiman, adding that his union wrote the government several letters. “It’s about transparency,” said Abubakar Mustapha, former Head of Service. “For the governor to say this is the financial situation but he’s incapacitated.”
In the early days of this tenth Assembly, the matter almost came to a boil when two lawmakers, Sam Kambai and Henry Marah, were asked out of the chambers because of their insistence on investigating the finances of the former governor. “If Mallam has approval, let him provide it,” asserted a senior lawmaker. “You need the majority of the lawmakers to approve the loans either local or external.”
“It is because of their friendship that he was trying to tell lawmakers to allow him handle the situation without public noise,” said another lawmaker.“Uba Sani was in Abuja when Nasir was mismanaging the finances. If a man gives you a job, he will not perform it for you,” said an aide to the governor.
“Kaduna State is at its hour of reckoning with the truth I foretold and the truth for which I was vilified,” he said. He was particularly miffed, since he comes from the southern part of the state with wanton killings by hordes of bandits. “What of the money drawn on security?” he asked. “We approved N3.5 billion for security gadgets. Where are the gadgets?
When he sought the loan, he was a great evangelist of the idea. He made this known when he was attending the send-off party for the World Bank representative Ben Massaoud.“I took pictures of all the schools and converted the images into an album. Then I approached Ben Massaoud who asked me what I wanted to do.”
But it is like an anticlimax after all the big hopes for the state and the taking of the big loan. Neighbours like Kano and Katsina are receiving more money than Kaduna because of the debts that the former governor piled up for the successor with much of the work undone and all the money spent. The whole debt profile is on the DMO website, says Muktar Ahmed Monrovia, the Commissioner for Budget and Planning, and a former lawmaker.
He said the governor answers to the people and he is aware of that responsibility. “His intention is to let people know the state of affairs in our commonwealth.” “Some people may say we want to be political but we have confidence in his ability to engage stakeholders,” he said. He commented on the work done by the government in infrastructure in furtherance of the loan project, but he was not impressed.
TUC’s Danfulani said in meetings with the governor, they thrashed out a number of issues, especially regarding the stewardship of the former governor.He lamented that the former governor disengaged about 30,000 workers, though he engaged others. He is unhappy that he did not pay them their pensions and gratuities. He violated the severance law.
In the letter titled ‘The attempt to misappropriate Sure-P Funds in Kaduna State’ and addressed to EFCC Chairman, the Chairman of the Committee, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, informed the commission of steps being taken by the outgoing State Government to legitimize the misappropriation of N2.744 billion Local Government Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme funds, and therefore called on the commission to stop such last-minute looting of public assets.
He praised the governor for being proactive. “The day he spoke to us at the townhall meeting was 28th March. By 28th and 29th, he started showing results. Observers say only about five or six of the 23 Local Government Areas were affected by the loans. We learnt that the areas affected were Sabon Gari Local Government Area, Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna North Local Government Area, Kaduna South Local Government Area, Kafanchan Local Government Area and Igabi Local Government Area. Out of these, only three of them enjoyed as much as 70 percent work done.
The company was given a contract of N41 billion and paid N39 billion, claimed a government official. They had done only 30 percent of the job before El-Rufai left. Yet, the former governor reviewed the contract and approved another N51 billion, although his successor has not paid it.
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