THE Kwara State Government on Tuesday clarified that the state’s debt currently stands at N30.2 billion with a monthly repayment of N496 million.

The State Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Demola Banu, told newsmen in Iiorin that this was contrary to some speculations.

According to him, the debt stood at N31.4 billion in 2017 and N30.7 billion at the end of 2018, contrary to social media speculation of N50.2 billion.

Giving a breakdown of the current indebtedness, Banu explained that the loan included N15.3 billion balance of the Federal Government restructured loan, N4 billion salary bail out, excess crude account loan outstanding of N9.3 billion and vehicle loan balance of N128 million.

Others are the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) and Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) Agriculture Scheme with respective balances of N646 million and N679 million as well as International Aviation College loan balance of N96 million.

Banu said that the repayment of N496 million was being deducted from the state’s monthly federal allocation, adding that the figure included a monthly deduction of N39 million as repayment for foreign loans obtained by the government in the 1970s.

Banu said that the Federal Government restructured the state government’s short and long-term bank loans to reduce monthly repayment, while the state also benefitted from a five billion salary bailout loan in 2015.

The commissioner said that the excess crude account loans were Federal Government-backed bank facilities which served as seed money for the Kwara Infrastructure Development Fund (IF-K) and payment for ongoing projects in the state.

He said that the CACS and ABP were state-government guaranteed Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) loans to farmers in the state.

-NAN

BE

– Mar. 19, 2019 @ 16:30 GMT /