Kwara Owes N30.2bn Debt – Finance Commissioner
The Kwara State Government has said that its debt profile, which it owed both the Federal government and external creditors, currently stands at N30.2bn
The Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Demola Banu, while making a clarification in a statement in Ilorin on Tuesday, said that contrary to public speculation, the state’s current debt portfolio stood at N30,203,632,608.29 with a monthly repayment of N496,367,109.08.
He said, “The debt profile of the state was N31,481,082,712.95 in 2017 and stood at N30,751,665,421.83 at the end of 2018, contrary to social media speculation of N50.2bn.”
Giving a breakdown of the current indebtedness, Banu explained that “the N30.2bn includes N15,325,541,483.03 as the balance of the Federal Government restructured loan , N4,002,948,667.07 as salary bailout, excess crude account loan outstanding of N9,324,613,607.52 and vehicle loan balance of N128,916,612.87.
“Others are the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme and the Anchor Borrowers Programme (Agriculture Scheme) with respective balances of N646,213,285.03 and N679,233,857.13 as well as International Aviation College loan balance of N96,165,095.64. “
While clarifying that the repayment of N496,367,109.08 was deducted from the state’s monthly federal allocation, Banu added that the figure include a monthly deduction of N39,632,016.56 as repayment for foreign loans obtained by the government in the 1970s.
Giving a further breakdown, Alhaji Banu explained that the Federal Government restructured the state government’s short and long-term bank loans to reduce monthly repayment, while the state also benefitted from a N5bn salary bailout loan in 2015.
Additionally, the commissioner stated that the excess crude account loans were Federal Government-backed bank facilities which served as seed money for the Kwara State Infrastructure Development Fund and payment for ongoing projects in the state while CACS and ABP were state-government guaranteed Central Bank of Nigeria loans to farmers in the state.
