Akeredolu Reduced Ondo Debt From N220bn To N92bn – Commissioner

Ondo State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Pastor Emammuel Igbasan has disclosed that the administration of Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has reduced the state debt from N220bn inherited from past administration to N92bn.

Igbasan stated this yesterday in Akure, the state capital during an interactive session with members of the Correspondents Chapel of Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), hinting that the state was not owing up to N10bn as conceptual debt presently.

Igbasan said Governor Akeredolu’s administration’s decision to engage the input of the citizens on its budgeting processes in 2017 helped the state to receive several global partnerships.

According to him, “We have internal and external debt in the state but when you bring the totality together, the conceptual debt amounts to N220bn when we took over. Right now, it has reduced to between N90bn to N92bn including multilateral debt.

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Igbasan disclosed that “All the salaries we paid were part of the debt. The cumulative debt of pensioners was N35bn when we took over. Even if we deploy the resources of the state we cannot offset this, so we decided to give N200 million to them yearly to sort the pensioner’s debt.”

While speaking on the plans of the government to tackle the Ayetoro sea incursion, Igbasan said the sea incursion problem faced by Ayetoro’s residents has been a source of worry to Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu.

According to him, “Ayetoro is a problematic and pathetic one for us as a state. If you look at the historical heritage of that place and its enterprises, it is not a place that should go into extinction.

“There are so many theories because for me, before I propose a solution, I want to dig deep into the root of the problem so that I won’t be dealing with the symptoms. I told Mr. Governor that before we can give solutions to the problem in Ayetoro, we need to know the cause.