Bailout not enough to clear debts –Ajimobi

Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi on Saturday said the Federal Government bailout of N26.6bn to the state would not be enough to pay all the outstanding salaries owed the state workers.

Ajimobi, who spoke during a programme on Splash FM, Ibadan and monitored by our correspondent, said the state government must look for more money from other sources to ensure all outstanding salaries of workers were paid this month. He added that the FG bailout would be accessed this week.

“Next (this) week, we should be able to access the Federal Government bailout of N26.6bn. Local Government workers will get N9.3bn from the sum while the state government workers will get the remaining N17.3bn. As of today, we owe the state workers N21.3bn but all we could get from the bailout is N17.3bn. So if we get the money today, we will still have to look for more money to balance the account so that all the debt can be paid,” the governor said.

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Oyo State gets about N3bn monthly allocation from the federation account and gets about N1.2bn as Internally Generated Revenue.

Ajimobi said government should be apportioned the bulk of the blame for the economic woes facing Nigeria. He also reiterated his administration’s decision to stop sponsoring pilgrims as part of measures to reduce cost of governance in the state.

He added, “We should blame the culture of spending without saving, lifestyles of Nigerians, ourselves and government for the position we find ourselves today. We have not managed the economy well but government should take the larger blame. So much money had been stolen.’’