FG Bailout Not Enough To Offset Oyo’s Debts – Ajimobi

Abiola AjimobiGovernor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi on Saturday said the Federal Government bailout of N26.6bn to the state is inadequate to offset all outstanding salaries owed the state workers.

Ajimobi, who made this known during a programme on Splash FM, Ibadan said the state government must source for more funds from other areas to ensure all outstanding salaries of workers were paid this month.

He also disclosed that the state would access the FG bailout this week.

“Next (this) week, we should be able to access the Federal Government bailout of N26.6bn. Local Government workers will get N9.3bn from the sum while the state government workers will get the remaining N17.3bn. As of today, we owe the state workers N21.3bn but all we could get from the bailout is N17.3bn. So if we get the money today, we will still have to look for more money to balance the account so that all the debt can be paid”, the governor said.

Oyo State receives about N3bn monthly allocation from the federation account while its Internally Generated Revenue is N1.2bn.

Gov. Ajimobi said government should take the bulk of the blame for the economic woes facing Nigeria just as he reiterated his administration’s decision to stop sponsoring pilgrims as part of measures to reduce cost of governance in the state.

He added, “We should blame the culture of spending without saving, lifestyles of Nigerians, ourselves and government for the position we find ourselves today. We have not managed the economy well but government should take the larger blame. So much money had been stolen”.

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