Posted by By Farotimi Oluwole on
WHEN the current Lagos State finally hands over to a new one on May 29, it will be with a debt close to N100 billion.
WHEN the current Lagos State finally hands over to a new one on May 29, it will be with a debt close to N100 billion.
Governor-elect, Babatunde Fashola, will however not be left with debts only, as he will also inherit a N27 billion credit in the coffers of the state government.
These were disclosed yesterday by the Finance Commissioner, Mr. Akin Doherty, at the state's on-going ministerial briefings.
Doherty said N4.7 billion of the debt was the remnant of the N14.8 billion the state owed the Paris Club. He added that another N15 billion debt would be brought forward from multilateral loans.
"This is however subject to further reconciliation which may alter the outstanding balance as soon as the Debt Management Office (DMO) in Abuja and Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission conclude their on-going reconciliation exercises on the loans, which will have to be agreed upon by all stakeholders," he added.
According to the commissioner, the N26 billion sourced from the World Bank as loan for the financing of the Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project had not been paid.
"These cheap loans are still within their moratorium periods ranging between 5-10 years when the principal repayment and interest will commence," he said, adding that "the beauty of these cheap loans is that they are procured at concessionary interest rates between 0.25-50 of one per cent."
Though, he declined to outline all the 45 domestic loans taken by the Tinubu administration, Doherty said the loans were used to finance development projects, including the restoration of Bar Beach; purchase of Marcopolo buses managed by LAGBUS Ltd for mass transportation; housing schemes and the soon-to-be-completed dualisation of Lagos State University (LASU) Iba and Ajah Badore roads."
His words: "41 out of the 45 various domestic loans had been fully repaid while the remaining four are at various stages of repayment with the last one to be fully repaid by October 2007."
He added that Tinubu would also be handing over N27 billion consisting of outstanding credit balance in bond redemption account. He gave the breakdown thus: N2.3 billion expected on Independent Power Project (IPP) refund; N6 billion expected refund of Lagos State share of excess crude funds used to settle Paris Club debt and; N14 billion local council funds withheld by the Federal Government.
Meanwhile, the Tinubu administration spent N180 billion as staff salary and emoluments of its 50,000 core civil servants in the last eight years.
This amount, Doherty said, did not include payment to the 15,000 civil service/teachers pensioners, 51,000 primary school teachers and council workers.
In the year under review, Doherty explained that the state expended N70 billion on the civil service operational running costs and subvention to the state's 50 parastatals and tertiary institutions.
The commissioner revealed that his ministry was able to rake in N3.5 billion from Land Use Charge between 2001 and 2007 adding that "local governments have been the major beneficiaries of the amount so far collected."