Plateau APC Lambasts Mutfwang over N15 Billion Loan Request
… says the reasons are unconvincing
By Daniel Agada, Jos
The opposition party in Plateau State, All Progressive Congress, APC, has kicked against the N15 billion loan approved for Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang by the state House of Assembly.
Recall that Governor Mutfwang forwarded a request before the 10th Assembly seeking for a loan approval to the tune of N15 billion to settle backlog of salary arrears and the purchase of agricultural inputs for farmers in the state.
The House however granted the governor’s request on Thursday.
Dissatisfied with the decision of the state Assembly, APC acknowledged that, “the reasons advanced for the loan are as unconvincing as they are not tenable.”
A statement by Hon. Sylvanus Namang, Plateau state APC publicity secretary berated the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Governor Caleb Mutfwang over an attempt to plunge the state into a huge debt burden with less than three weeks in office.
“The APC in Plateau state sees this as a facade and an attempt to pull the wool across the people’s eyes. The government having failed to install Interim administrators in the local governments to serve as condiut pipes, decided to go for the N15 billion loan as an alternative to service its extra budgetary commitments.
“Government is a continuum and the past dispensation had made adequate budgetary provisions for payment of workers’ salaries and very essential products like fertiliser given the fact that Plateau State is largely an agrarian state”, the statement said.
APC also went ahead to raised some fundamental question that;”Is there a State Executive Council presently constituted in the state? To the best of our knowledge, what is on ground is the Governor, his Deputy and the Attorney General, whom we believe himself and the Governor being lawyers, ought to be conversant with this simple governance process.
“Secondly, has the Debt Management Advisory Committee been constituted in the state to discuss the loan based on the Law?
“Thirdly if in three weeks we are taking a loan of N15B, what will be the debt position of the state in four years from now? Simple Arithmetic would put this at N720 billion!
“If this same Government is complaining of huge debt profile of N200 billion on Plateau State after 24 years of three successive Governments, which they have mischievously presented to the public as debts obtained by the immediate past administration, why are they quick to take another humongous loan?
“Finally, we want to suggest that due deligence should be followed because the entire world is watching.”
