‘Makinde’s govt has reduced Oyo’s debt by N7.4b’

By Yinka Adeniran, Ibadan

The debt profile of the Oyo State Government has reduced by as much as N7.4 billion in the last two years of Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration, it was learnt on Monday

Mr. Taiwo Adisa, Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to Makinde, who stated this while responding to a statement by the Ajimobi Legacy Forum (ALF), said the late governor led a substandard governance.

Adisa said his claim was informed by data and statistics from the Debt Management Office, describing a statement credited to the ALF, which accused Makinde of poor governance, as not well-thought-out and premised on fraudulent statistics.

The CPS said due to the prudent management of the state’s resources by the governor, the state’s domestic debt was reduced from N99.3 billion, which it inherited from the late former Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s government in 2019 to N91.9 billion as shown by statistics made available by the DMO in March 2021.

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Adisa argued that contrary to claims by ALF and the All Progressives Congress (APC) that the Makinde government had embarked on excessive borrowing, the administration has borrowed about N24 billion for infrastructure financing. According to him, only N18 billion of the amount has been accessed so far.

He added that the administration has been concentrating the state’s resources on legacy projects and reduction of the state’s infrastructure deficit with a view to expand the economy of the state, wondering why ALF would describe the Moniya-Iseyin Road, Adamasingba Stadium renovation and remodelling and other key infrastructure projects as wasteful.

The statement alleged that the ALF went out with fraudulent and misleading statistics to deceive the public, saying the childish interpretation of DMO statistics made mockery of the group’s late principal, who is the real architect of Oyo’s debt and wasteful governance.

According to the governor’s media aide, the desperation of the attention-seeking and less-known ALF to share the limelight with the performing and people-oriented government of Governor Makinde, which celebrated two years in office with legacy projects and people-centred achievements that the Ajimobi government could not boast of in eight years, is pitiable and condemnable at the same time.

“From statistics made available by the Debt Management Office, a federal agency, the domestic debt of Oyo State as of June 2019 stood at N99,358,565,798.52 while the state’s foreign debt was 200 Million US dollars.

“The same Debt Management Office released another statistics in March 2021 stating that as of March 31, the state’s domestic debt was N91,954,231,316.98, which signified a reduction of N7,404,334,481.54.

“But in two years, what Makinde has done is to reduce the state’s domestic debt by N7.4 billion. This, of course, puts a lie to the efforts by the APC to portray Governor Makinde as engaging in excessive borrowing.

“To date, the Makinde administration has only borrowed about N24 billion and of this amount, only about N18 billion has been accessed,” Adisa said.

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