PRESS STATEMENT 27/5/24.
ALL PROGRESSIVES
ALL PROGRESSIVE CONGRESS, PLATEAU STATE CHAPTER KALWA HOUSE YAKUBU GOWON WAY, JOS.
PDP GOVERNMENT : ITS LATE, THE TIME IS NOT NOW.
Over the weekend, the Plateau State Government through the Secretary to the Government, Architect Samuel Jatau tearfully and sorrowfully too, said the Mutfwang administration is in dire financial stress as a result of heavy debt burden.
The SGS, revealed on a National Television, that the PDP government monthly, doles out ₦250 million to service debt inherited from the administrations.
The question is, why the outcry at this particular time,? Could it be that the government is overwhelmed or is stocked and bereft of ideas on the way forward?
Whatever the wailing means, it could be strategic, and also a smokescreen aimed at winning the people's sympathy as well as serve as an excuse for the government's non-performance in the past 365 days.
Suffice it to say that, the issue of debt servicing should not be an excuse, because the PDP was not unaware of the debt profile of the State, when it claimed during the campaigns, that it possessed the magic wand of making the Plateau, better than it met it.
Although this intervention reluctantly put across, should not have come now in the first place in view of the much anticipated Governor Mutfwang's speech of the first year in office, comes up in a matter of days.
Therefore, this thesis is just a response to the SGS's inchoate explanation of the debt profile of the State, which with all seriousness, should not go unchallenged.
To put things in proper perspective, it is imperative to start from where the PDP government took off, in terms of financial disposition, what it met on the ground, and the governor's official trajectory vis-a-vis his campaign manifesto, tagged " The time is now."
As a starter, the governor when taking off, after receiving the Professor Ganyir Lombin Committee report in June 2023, stated that he inherited a liability of three hundred and seven billion naira from the Lalong administration, which from documentary evidence was not true.
The Debt Management Office, the statutory body with authentic information on the indebtedness of all states of the federation, officially revealed that as of December 2023, Plateau State was indebted to the tune of ₦157,615,986,155.32 only. This disclosure debunked the PDP government's assertion.
The Debt Management Office then went further to reveal that the PDP government within a span of three months, June to December last year, increased the debt profile of the State to ₦174.93 billion, an increase of 16.31 billion naira.
This clearly shows that, rather than managing the debt and looking inward as enunciated in its campaign manifesto, the government embarked on a borrowing spree with disproportionate outcomes.
Aside from the borrowings, the government is reported to have generated an Internal Revenue of ₦10,841,250,482.37 not to mention other interventions.
More important, is FAAC allocation which stands ₦97,531,140,757.25 as against ₦34,133,327,206.78, the Lalong administration collected in a year.
It therefore follows that the Mutfwang's government enjoyed an increase of ₦63,397,813,551.07 over that of its predecessor. This marked difference is without special intervention funds, loans, and grants as sourced from http://www.nigeriastat.gov.ng.
Given the foregoing, it is absurd and unacceptable for the PDP to begin to cry wolf when it has added more to the debt profile of the State without any corresponding impact on the lives of the people of Plateau State.
Signed:
Shittu Bamaiyi,
Acting Publicity Secretary.
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