Don’t blame us for your woes, APC tells Kogi gov
The All Progressives Congress on
Tuesday asked the Kogi State government to go and sort itself out with
the Central Bank instead of trying to blame the party for its inability
to access bailout.
It described allegations by the Kogi State governor, Capt. Idris Wada, that political interference is responsible for his administration’s inability to access the bailout as cheap blackmail.
The Kogi State government and the PDP Governors’ Forum accused the APC-led Federal Government of playing politics with the bailout.
According to the APC, allegations by the Kogi State government and the PDP Governors’ Forum were at best, an attempt to blackmail it.
The statement partly read, “This accusation is in line with the new-found propensity of the PDP to blame everyone but itself for the woes that have befallen the party in recent times.
“If the opposition party is not accusing the APC of colluding with the judiciary over the election petition cases, it is accusing the ruling party of colluding with the CBN over bailout. This is sickening.
“The Kogi State Government should go and sort itself out with the CBN, if indeed it wants to get the bailout.
“Our investigations have revealed that the Kogi State Government has not been able to justify the over 50 billion Naira it is asking for as bailout. It is curious that the chunk of the funds which the state is asking for, over 40 billion Naira, is for the payment of the salaries of Local Government workers.”
According to the statement, the state claims that the backlog of salaries owed to these categories of workers dated back to 2011.
The APC wondered how this can be true when Nigeria was not broke in 2011 and the state had been collecting an average of N2.2bn monthly as Local Government allocation for four years.
The APC said, “What happened to the Local Government allocations collected by the state if it is owing LG workers since 2011?
“The figures and explanations tendered by the Kogi State Government to justify the request for N50.8bn are not tenable, especially because only N4.9bn of the amount is for the payment of workers in the state civil service.”
It said Nigerians should bear in mind that the bailout were not for anything beyond the payment of workers’ salaries.
The party said the onus was therefore on the Kogi State Government to justify its request for N50.8bn, and to assure the Central Bank of Nigeria that the state was not seeing the funds as slush money.
The party insists that it was the failure of the state to convince the CBN rather than any so-called political interference that had so far denied the state government access to the funds.
The APC reminded the PDP Governors’ Forum, which it accused of being quick to jump into the fray without doing its due diligence, that the initiative to bail the states out of their inability to pay workers’ salaries was at the instance of the Buhari Administration, and meant to provide much-needed relief to the workers.
“Therefore, it does not make sense for anyone to accuse the ruling party or an agency of the same government of frustrating the release of the funds.
“Kogi State has no one but itself to blame for the quagmire in which it has found itself over the bailout,” the party said.
It described allegations by the Kogi State governor, Capt. Idris Wada, that political interference is responsible for his administration’s inability to access the bailout as cheap blackmail.
This was contained in a statement signed by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in Abuja.
The APC was reacting to a statement credited to the state governor and the Peoples Democratic Party Governors’ Forum.The Kogi State government and the PDP Governors’ Forum accused the APC-led Federal Government of playing politics with the bailout.
According to the APC, allegations by the Kogi State government and the PDP Governors’ Forum were at best, an attempt to blackmail it.
The statement partly read, “This accusation is in line with the new-found propensity of the PDP to blame everyone but itself for the woes that have befallen the party in recent times.
“If the opposition party is not accusing the APC of colluding with the judiciary over the election petition cases, it is accusing the ruling party of colluding with the CBN over bailout. This is sickening.
“The Kogi State Government should go and sort itself out with the CBN, if indeed it wants to get the bailout.
“Our investigations have revealed that the Kogi State Government has not been able to justify the over 50 billion Naira it is asking for as bailout. It is curious that the chunk of the funds which the state is asking for, over 40 billion Naira, is for the payment of the salaries of Local Government workers.”
According to the statement, the state claims that the backlog of salaries owed to these categories of workers dated back to 2011.
The APC wondered how this can be true when Nigeria was not broke in 2011 and the state had been collecting an average of N2.2bn monthly as Local Government allocation for four years.
The APC said, “What happened to the Local Government allocations collected by the state if it is owing LG workers since 2011?
“The figures and explanations tendered by the Kogi State Government to justify the request for N50.8bn are not tenable, especially because only N4.9bn of the amount is for the payment of workers in the state civil service.”
It said Nigerians should bear in mind that the bailout were not for anything beyond the payment of workers’ salaries.
The party said the onus was therefore on the Kogi State Government to justify its request for N50.8bn, and to assure the Central Bank of Nigeria that the state was not seeing the funds as slush money.
The party insists that it was the failure of the state to convince the CBN rather than any so-called political interference that had so far denied the state government access to the funds.
The APC reminded the PDP Governors’ Forum, which it accused of being quick to jump into the fray without doing its due diligence, that the initiative to bail the states out of their inability to pay workers’ salaries was at the instance of the Buhari Administration, and meant to provide much-needed relief to the workers.
“Therefore, it does not make sense for anyone to accuse the ruling party or an agency of the same government of frustrating the release of the funds.
“Kogi State has no one but itself to blame for the quagmire in which it has found itself over the bailout,” the party said.
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