SAN FRANCISCO, November 10, (THEWILL) – The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described as “cheap blackmail” the decision by the Kogi State government and the PDP Governors’ Forum to blame political interference for the delay in the release of bailout funds for the state.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party said it had no business with the release or otherwise of the bailout funds to Kogi State.
”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 funds. This is sickening,” it said.
“Kogi State government should go and sort itself out with the CBN, if indeed it wants to get the bailout funds.”
Our investigations have revealed that the Kogi State government has not been able to justify the over N50 billion Naira it is asking for as bailout funds. It is curious that the chunk of the funds, which the state is asking for, over N40 billion, is for the payment of the salaries of Local Government workers.
”The state is saying the backlog of salaries owed to these categories of workers dates back to 2011.
“How can that be, when Nigeria was not even broke in 2011? How can the state owe Local Government workers when it has been collecting N2.2 billion monthly in allocation for Local Governments, amounting to over N100 billion in four years? What happened to the Local Government allocations collected by the state if it owes LG workers since 2011?”
”The figures and explanations tendered by the Kogi State Government to justify the request for N50.8 billion in bailout funds are not tenable, especially because only N4.9 billion of the amount is for the payment of workers in the state civil service,” the APC said.
