Bello who was in the Presidential Villa to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari said if this continues, the debt profile of the state would rise to N10 billion by the end of the year.
Niger State has a population of over four million with civil service strength of about 40,000. The state receives N1.5 billion from the federation account and still borrows to make up for salaries to pay workers and cater for the rest of the population, the governor told journalists after his meeting with the President.
According to him, everyone must sacrifice. He said already the state government house has cut its expenses from N150 million a week to between N20 and N25 million.
” No no no! We have not resolved to pay half salaries but what we are saying is that from January this year we have been borrowing from banks to augment whatever we have been getting from Federation Account(FAAC).
think we should go back to the table, of course we can’t give what we don’t have but we are facing difficult times now let’s sit down and see what we can do.
“I read somewhere that we are going to reduce salaries. That is not true but we have engaged labour and we are still talking to them. We have laid the cards on the table, we are not hiding anything we are very transparent as much as we can but the truth of the matter is that we cannot give what we don’t have. I wish I had, personally if I had I
would have paid from my pocket but I can’t”.
“I really think it is unhealthy to keep on borrowing just to pay salaries, apart from that we are not just there to pay salaries, there are a lot of issues. I got a call this morning that one Girls Secondary School that their roof is off in six out of seven
dormitories. Where will they sleep? Now if I take the whole revenue and pay salaries, how am I going to fix schools, hospitals.
“Niger State has a population of over four million, civil service strength of about 40,000, we get N1.5 billion from federation account and even with that we still have to borrow to pay 40,000 people against over 3 million people that we need to cater for.
“So I strongly believe that honestly we should look at it. Is nobody’s fault that the price of oil has gone down, is nobody’s fault that the revenue has gone down, we are facing difficult times but hopefully things will improve. But we should all make sacrifices, I’m willing to make sacrifices, all my appointees are willing to make sacrifices. We have shown example by cutting down our expenditure, we have cut down the operation of the expenses of the government house from N150 million a week to N20-25 million a week. So we have cut down government house expenditure by over 70 per cent and I mean these are all sacrifices” he said.
He said the state has saved some money for projects including, the Suleja-Minna Road and the Bida road. “I was asked at a function yesterday (Tuesday) where I got money from but the truth is we just have to improvise, we have to save to move in” he said .
Asked if he would probe the previous administration, Bello said investigations were already ongoing and some misappropriated pension funds had been recovered. “I believe the team has met with the former governor, I don’t want to interfere with their investigations” he
added.
On the religious riot that broke out in the state, the governor vowed that those found wanting by allegedly posting a blasphemous statement about Prophet Muhammad on the social media in Pandogari town, Niger State, will be punished.
An investigative panel has already been set up to look into the cause of the riot and the outcome of the panel will help the government to prevent a future reoccurrence the governor said.
The religious riot was said to have started at about 6 p.m on Sunday when a 24 year old trader, Methodus Chimaije Emmanuel, was attacked and killed by a mob for allegedly posting a blasphemous statement about Prophet Muhammad on social media
“The situation was unfortunate in Pandogari. I think someone posted some blasphemous stories about the Prophet and of course you know the sensitive nature when it comes to religion and one person was killed, later on we heard that either police or the army shot a civilian and three or four people lost their lives. We will await the outcome of the investigative panel so that we mitigate against this happening next time. This is unacceptable and whoever is involved will be
severely punished” the governor said .
