The Delta State Government has expressed disappointment over the action of the State Chapter of the All Progressive Congress, APC, for spreading a whole lot of misconceptions and lies over the N100 billion discounting facilities loan that has been requested.
The honorable Commissioner for Information, Mr. Charles Aniagwu, and his counterpart, the honorable Commissioner for Finance, Chief Fidelis Tilijie, alongside the Chief Press Secretary to the Delta state Governor, Mr. Olise Ifejika, said this during a press briefing in Asaba, the state capital on Monday stating that the Delta State government is not seeking a new loan of N100 billion rather it is only seeking N20 billion which is the fresh loan.
Conveying, the Commissioner for Information, Mr. Aniagwu, said those who don’t know what to tell Nigerians particularly Deltas are beginning to paint pictures that are not relevant to reality simply because it’s an electioneering period and they want to score cheap political points.
He said APC started spreading lies concerning what the government is doing, how it’s financing the projects, and how it’s continuing to deliver all the many projects.
Similarly speaking, Chief Tilijie, who is the Commissioner for Finance, stated that he was drawn into the misconception surrounding the N100 billion discounting facility loan when he heard about the lies circulating that the state government is seeking a fresh loan of N100 billion.
He said the N100 billion remains the N100 billion because the repayment is a discounting facility from a syndicate of the banks and the N100 billion stands alone stating that the N20 billion which is the new loan is intended to invest in a gas production company that will be situated in Warri.
Explaining he said “Initially when we started the discussion with the gas company, they wanted to put the head office in Bayelsa but we said the only way we can invest in it is when they move the head office back to Delta State which will be in Warri, and as God may also have it, the promoter of that gas plant is a Deltan which we said, you can’t be a Deltan and bringing in businesses then you are taking it to Bayelsa to go and invest on.”
“So that is exactly how the N20 billion came in. The N20 billion has nothing whatsoever to do with the discounting facility that we are discussing, this is a separate payment source from the state government.”
According to him the totality of the amount they are trying to discount is still the same, maintaining that they initially wanted to take N150 billion as discounting facilities proceed from the market but when they sat down and review the cash inflows, they decided to bring it down to N100 billion.
He said “It is that formal N100 billion that we intend to take but we had to go to the House of Assembly again because we found out that the lead agent of that same N100 billion discounting facilities was not moving as fast as we wanted, and all we did was to go back to the House of Assembly in the same spirit of transparency and accountability to seek their consent to enable us to change the lead bank for that discounting facilities exercise. That is all we did, the Commissioner for Finance added.
Speaking further he said “It is not a new loan, it is not a new discounting facility, it is not a new bridging, it is still the same N100 billion that we had been speaking about since then and until now. All we did was to change the lead bank to another lead bank, this is the only reason why we had to go to the House of Assembly.”
“I do know that in certain other states, the need to go to the House of Assembly may not arise and the third process may not be there because they will think the responsibility of determining who is a lead agent solely depends on the executive which is the governor of the state, but Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa in his usual manner felt that whatever alteration that we’ll be making, whether a change of terms and conditions, we must go back to the House of Assembly and that was why we had to go to the House of Assembly again to let them know that the N100 billion that they have earlier approved as discounting facilities would no longer be loaned by that particular lead bank that was earlier documented since we have decided to change the lead bank to another bank.”
“I know that journalists often do research and we are at the point when we will be going to the House of Assembly to itemize all the projects we will be doing with the discounting facilities, the details of all the projects we intend to fund from the discounting facilities proceeds are known to all of us, those who are yet to get the details can go to the House of Assembly, it’s a public document for everyone to have a purview of it.”
“For instance, I said we are going to be spending N10 billion out of the proceeds to fund the pension arrears of the state, we have released N5 billion to the state pension board and we have also given N5 billion to the Local Government board. Even if we decided to reduce it from N150 billion to N100 billion, we still felt it’s very important to keep to the target we initially intended regarding the pension arrears of the state.”
“I have said earlier that we have gotten N30 billion initially but as we speak today because of the change of the lead agent, we have gotten N80 billion and we are still trying to access the additional N20 billion. We have started executing the projects that we have already itemized initially when we approached the House for the loan.”
“A lot of money has been paid to the contractors at the flyover, the interchange at the Ibusa junction and a lot of payments have also been paid to those contractors at the film village, the leisure park, the Mother and Child hospital, and of course, we have been able to resume three more Technical Colleges, one in Asaba, one in Effurun, Warri, and the other in Obiarukun. All these funds are fully paid and we are doing everything possible to ensure that the incoming governor of Delta State does not start where Governor Ifeanyi Okowa started, that era of no money has passed and we are doing everything humanly possible that there is enough funding for the next government when they come in, Chief Tilijie added.
