By LEONARD OKACHIE

Gov. Alex Otti of Abia says the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has approved a loan of $125m, to finance some of the capital projects in the state.

The governor made this known on Monday during the monthly media parley in Umuahia.

He also disclosed that the African Development Bank approved another loan for the state.

According to him, the loans have not been drawn yet, but approvals are in place.

The governor explained that the next line of action would be for the documentation to be perfected, loan agreement signed and conditions to be met.

He said that the government had received offers of loans from commercial banks in the country, but was yet to draw from any of them.

“Of course, we are also financially enlightened as a government that we do not need to draw loans until we need them.

“Any time we have liquidity we will repay so that we don’t continue to accumulate interest,” Otti, a former bank chief said.

Otti, a member of the Labour Party, denied recent allegation by a major opposition party, accusing the government of securing N1.5bn loan, saying “they were lies.”

The governor disclosed that the state government had just approved bursary awards for all students of Abia origin in different Law schools in the country.

He said that the bursary awards was prior to requests by the students.

Otti also said that the government had started setting up the new scholarship board in order to help the hard working but indigent students access quality education.

He said that his administration was also considering giving wage awards to the state civil servants to help cushion the effect of the prevailing hardship in the country.

Reacting to the complaint by some workers who had yet to receive their salary for some months now, he boasted about the prompt payment for the majority.

According to him, maybe, about five per cent of the people are the ones complaining.

Otti, who expressed worry the about over bloated civil service, said that there were close to 66,000 people in the payroll both at the state and local government levels.

He said that the number was initially more than that, but was reduced after the verification exercise that was done in the state.

“So, we keep improving, we keep trying to sanitise the system and we keep working hard to ensure that the welfare of our workers are prioritised,” Otti said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the governor spoke on a range of issues, while urging the people to keep supporting his administration in an effort to rebuild the state. (NAN)

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