Kwara State Executive Council said it has acceded to the request presented by the Honourable Commissioner for Finance Florence Olasumbo Oyeyemi seeking virement of the N27.2bn bond recently obtained to commit more funds to road projects.
Government reasoned the step would further open up the state for more investments.
The Commissioner for Communications, Mr Bode Towoju said the approval, which was granted at the last SEC meeting chaired by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq will now go to the House of Assembly for its concurrence.
“Under the cabinet approval, according to him, “the government is seeking to allocate at least N4bn of the N7bn earlier allotted to agro-processing (cashew) in the bond to infrastructural projects, especially in the rural (agrarian) areas to boost investment potentials and job creation.
“The bond is strictly regulated for the sake of accountability and review of any amounts allocated to each projects listed in the bond must follow due process, including cabinet and Parliament approval which must then be green-lighted by the bond issuers”.
Towoju said the cabinet has also approved a memorandum to allow private investments and management of the struggling Kwara Hotel to renovate and turn around the fortune of the hospitality facility under a term that creates more values and protects the interest of the public.
The terms he said, would not include sale of the facility or its use as collateral to seek loans of any type. “The cabinet’s approval for Kwara Hotel will also go to the House of Assembly for its own scrutiny and approval in line with the due process”. The commissioner said.
But the Peoples Democratic Party in the state has condemned the move describing the commissioner’s explanation of the virement as ‘opaque’, arguing that it is an avenue to syphon the state resources,
To date, according to the state Publicity Secretary, Prince 'Tunji Moronfoye, “Kwara APC government is yet to answer precisely the exact projects the bond was obtained for.
“They are unable to express clearly the cost of each item on the bond. Instead, we are assuaged with pedestrian, weak and lackluslustre explanations of what the bond will be used for.
“They are unable to express clearly the cost of each item on the bond. Instead, we are assuaged with pedestrian, weak and lackluster explanations of what the bond will be used for.
Questioning the propriety and the processes further, the party said “financial rules and regulations, bonds are usually put together by financial institutions or consortiums who in turn study the applying body's bills of quantities and repayment plans.
“The financial consortium that packaged the Kwara state government bond is at this point, questionable. How would the Kwara state government change the use of the bond after dispensation of funds by the financial institutions?
“Issues of viability of projects and repayment schedule would be affected by this sudden suspicious change.
“We all know that the bond consortium would have first studied the virement and given approval before the Executive Council could sit on the issue, before now passing it to the House of Assembly for further legislation and passage “.
The party also queried Governor Abdulrazaq’s plan to bring in investors to manage Kwara hotels now, when his party was fiercely critical of the idea by the last administration.
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