Ekiti State All Progressives Congress, APC, has asked Mr Ayodele Fayose not to misappropriate the bail-out loans being facilitated by the Federal Government, saying the disbursements and spending of the loans would be monitored to ensure compliance with the terms of borrowing to curb diversion.
APC said the call became imperative against the backdrop of his misapplication of the balance of the N4 billion bond taken by former Governor Adeniyi Adebayo, which Fayose diverted in 2004 to other purposes different from the terms of the bond agreement.
Ekiti APC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun, said in a statement that Ekiti people would want the governor to spend the loans for salary payments and settlement of other debts owed civil servants and former political office holders.
He said: “Our concern is premised on the alarms Governor Fayose has been raising on the status of the state’s debts, particularly his condemnation of the Federal Government’s bailout initiative, which he dismissed as not a bail-out but statutory allocation.
“It is gratifying that the Federal Government again made available N9.6 billion to the state to offset salaries, allowances and other emoluments owed civil servants, pensioners and former political appointees, but we have our reservations on the governor’s new move to access another N10 billion to be repaid in 10 years.
“Our reservations is premised on the evidence that the governor has no development blueprint he put before Ekiti people during campaigns, fueling fears that the loan may end up like that of 2005 bond, which Fayose misappropriated in his N1.3 billion fraudulent poultry project that was never in his development blueprint.”
Stressing that the governor’s meeting with workers to seek their opinion on the propriety of taking the N9.6 billion loan was diversionary and fraud on the intelligence of Ekiti work force, Olatunbosun said the party could not fathom why the governor, who had already taken the loan, would pretend that workers’ input mattered in order to blindfold the workers into a collective responsibility for fraud.
He added that with the loan facilities, Fayose had no reason to owe any category of the state civil and public servants, including former political office holders, as the loans were mainly approved for such purposes.