Immediate past governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayodele Fayose has reacted to the N155billion debt the state government announced that his administration incurred in four years, and described it as “false.”

In a statement by his media aide, Mr Lere Olayinka, in reaction to the debt figures announced by Governor Kayode Fayemi, Fayose said Fayemi was “only trying to cover up his 100 days of failure by lying that Fayose’s administration incurred N155 billion debt.”

Fayose said: “No amount of falsehood can diminish the outstanding achievements of the Fayose-led government,” and added that “when a governor goes about advertising signing of 2019 budget as a major program of his 100 days in office, such a governor should be pitied and on this one, we can only pray for the reconstruction of the lying mind of Dr John Kayode Fayemi.”

He said: “On September 8, 2018, Fayemi said Ekiti debt was N117 billion. On October 17, 2018, the same Fayemi claimed the debt was N170 billion. Today, he is talking about N155 billion, so which one should the public believe?”

According to him, “Ekiti State was not committed to any financial institution in form of bonds and commercial loans,” and added that “the state’s indebtedness was under N60 billion and that the debt was either directly incurred during Fayemi’s first tenure or as a result of the loans restructuring done at the instance of the federal government and the Federal Economic Council.”

He gave the breakdown as follows; Commercial Bank Loan, N2,087,788,065.28; CBN Grant for Water Project, N163,450,000; Excess Crude Account Backed Loan, N9,545,173,472.78; Bailout, N9,083,761,215.40; FGN Bonds, N18,226,699,707.18; State Bonds, N3,484,469,345.51 and Budget Support, N16,869,000,000.

•Sourced from a Tribune report