Fayose Wasted N18bn Paris Club Loan Refund, Says Fayemi

• Fayose Wasted N18bn Paris Club Loan Refund, Says Fayemi

The Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has accused his predecessor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, of wasting the N18bn Paris Club loan refund given to the state by the Federal Government.

The governor, who spoke in Ado Ekiti on Sunday during the December edition of the monthly ‘Meet your Governor’ programme, dismissed rumours that the two-month old Fayemi administration had collected Paris Club loan refund totalling N30bn.

The governor said, “I have not collected any money in the fashion of road intervention or Paris Club loan refund. Former governor Fayose had the opportunity to pay bulk of the backlog of salaries and pensions. He collected N18bn out of the N21.5bn due to Ekiti in the fund. So, what is left for Ekiti is just N3.5bn which cannot pay a month salary of workers.

“I decided to delay appointment of politicians into government for me to be able to pay our workers. With this, Ekiti can now know who the real and honest friend of the masses is,” he said.

But Fayose, who insisted that Fayemi had collected billions of naira between October and now, charged the governor to “stop ranting, but pay workers their salaries with the N30bn he received from the Federal Government.”

The former governor, in a statement by his Media Aide, Lere Olayinka, said there were conditions given by the Federal Government before the fund was released, adding that reports of the utilisation of the first tranche of the refunds was one of the conditions for the release of the second tranche.

Fayose said, “Besides, the fund was meant for both the state and local governments and it is on record that Ekiti fell into the hardship of inability to pay salaries regularly as a result of the debt incurred by the state during Fayemi’s first tenure and the loans restructuring done at the instance of the Federal Government and the Federal Economic Council.