The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has issued a seven-day ultimatum to Governor Ayodele Fayose to render accounts of all monies he has received since he assumed office, including various taxes he imposed on Ekiti people.
The party on Thursday warned that it would mobilise civil society groups and all men of good conscience to press for the investigation and prosecution of Fayose if he failed to do this.
The APC, who accused the governor of fabricating figures on the state’s debts to deceive the people and paint former Governor Kayode Fayemi in bad light, said the Ekiti people deserved to know how their money was being spent
Reacting to the claims by Fayose’s media aide, Lere Olayinka, that Fayemi plunged Ekiti into debts without any commensurate development projects to show for it, the state Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said in a statement that it was only the blind that would not see various development projects executed by the former governor.
“Fayemi did not borrow to pay salary. He received awards from many international bodies, including the United Nations’ agency and top Nigerians, for the feats he recorded in development projects, the last being the award for the state that led in budget transparency among other states in Nigeria that Fayose tried to usurp.
“Fayose lied that Fayemi at a point in time collected N9bn as monthly federal allocation. The records are there that Ekiti monthly share of federal allocation remained N2.8bn throughout and the biggest being N3.2bn when excess crude oil fund was shared among the states.
“The former governor owed one month salary, and that was September 2014, and this was as a result of Fayose as Governor-elect writing the banks not to honour Fayemi’s credit facility to pay workers salary and pay the banks back after receiving the allocation for the month in question.”
Olatunbosun explained that Fayemi paid N2.2b monthly for salaries, pensions and subventions to higher institutions throughout his tenure.
He argued that the monthly wage bill had reduced to less than N2bn contrary to N2.6bn that Fayose was claiming as the monthly wage bill due to workers losing their jobs and many social services suspended, including stoppage of social security stipends to the elderly when he became the governor.
The APC spokesman challenged the governor to produce the official debt figure of Ekiti State that is different from N18bn that the Debts Management Office declared was the state’s debt, saying Fayose was lying by quoting N232bn.
“Fayose is a pathological liar by his claim that Ekiti State’s debt is N232.9bn to be paid back in 21 years. The Federal Ministry of Finance published the state allocations in the newspapers few days ago with Ekiti receiving N1.9bn but Fayose declared that he received N1.3bn.
“This is a man that has introduced all manner of taxes that he can’t account for, yet he comes everyday declaring that Ekiti is broke.
“We hereby issue him a deadline of seven days to render accounts of all monies he has received since he assumed office, including various taxes he imposed on Ekiti people.
“The civil servants who he owed three months salaries and allowances as well as Ekiti people generally deserve to know how their money is being spent. Failure to do this will compel APC to mobilise civil society groups and all men of good conscience to press for the investigation and prosecution of Fayose who has made lying his official government policy.”
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