N143.6bn is Osun’s debt profile – Govt.
Osun State Accountant-General, Kolawole Akintayo, has put the state debt portfolio at N143.6 billion, just as Governor Rauf Aregbesola assured that the debt would be fully repaid by 2019.
Kolawole, when asked the exact amount the State owes during an all night interactive session with the governor at the weekend in Osogbo, he stated that the total debt which Governor Rauf Aregbesola would be leaving for State to pay would be N143.6 billion as against the false figures being circulated by the members of the opposition parties in the state.
The Accountant-General said: “Total debt of the State of Osun was put at N171.4 billion in the last seven years. A sum of N28 billion had been paid, leaving a balance of N143.6 billion debt.”
Corroborating Akintayo’s statement, Governor Aregbesola said that Osun would settle all the debts in 2019, saying “there will be no kobo left of the N30 billion conventional loan in 2019, and by September 2020, N11.4 billion Sukuk would have been settled.”
Speaking on the Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola International Airport, Ido-Osun, Governor Aregbesola, explained that the Airport remains a top priority of his administration despite the failure being experienced from concessionaire.
Governor Aregbesola explained that the project was withdrawn from the concessionaire because of its failure to fulfill the agreement reached during the concession talks.
Aregbesola said: “The Airport is still one of our priorities. We had concrete plans for its execution but for our lean purse. The Airport project has not failed. It is the concessionaire that has failed. We are still fully committed to the Airport project.”
He stressed that aside the Airport project, other infrastructural interventions of his government had yielded positive results with the way the economy of the state is witnessing rapid growth.
“The reason we borrowed for infrastructural development and not for investment is simple. In a liberal economy like ours, government has no business doing business, the responsibility of government is to provide enabling environment for businesses to thrive,” Aregbesola concluded.
