The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has refuted claims by the state governor, Ayodele Fayose that the fresh Paris Club refund will be insufficient to pay more than one month salary.
Fayose during his media chat programme had said the finance ministry was planning to reduce the Paris refund to states by half.
In a statement on Monday, the state APC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, claimed Ekiti State’s share was N9.6bn in the table of Paris Club refunds to all the 36 states released by the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The statement said, “Fayose hinted during the programme that what Ekiti got as refund from the Paris Club could barely pay a month salary because of deductions.
“We challenge Governor Fayose over this false claim as the Paris refund is not subject to any deduction. It is the state’s monthly allocation that is subject to deduction while the local government allocation is also not subject to deduction.
“It was Ekiti State Government that borrowed money from the Paris Club and not the local governments and so refunds cannot be made to local government.
“The N9.6bn refund is exclusively for the state government to pay salary and so any other claims by Fayose to brainwash the workers to deny them their entitlements once again is not only wicked and selfish, but also a fraudulent practice that Fayose has elevated to an official policy to short-change the state and her people at all times.”
The statement added that the funds were enough to pay the backlog of salaries and other allowances.
“Another cash of monthly N1.3bn budget support fund, including Internally Generated Revenue of about N300m is there and this is separate from the local government allocation, thus bringing total cash this month alone to N13.1bn.”
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