BOND: WHY MY GOVT’LL CONTINUE TO BORROW – ELECHI

Ebonyi State Governor, Martin Elechi, yesterday gave reasons why his administration will continue to borrow to develop the state, Elechi said borrowing is not a new phenomenon for his administration, despite the noise being made by the opposition.
“My government intends to go for a bigger debt in addition to the N15 billion bond recently approved by the state House of Assembly.”
Elechi’s position was contained in a remark to a cross section of stakeholders in response to strident criticisms by leaders of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), who accused the governor of always borrowing money at the nick of an election to fund his party’s electoral campaigns.
Member representing Ishielu/Ezza North in the House of Representatives, Hon. Peter Edeh, had in an interview with journalists in Abakaliki, described the N15 billion fresh bond sought by Elechi as an attempt to mortgage the future of Ebonyi citizens.
He said: “We will not accept plunging our people into such avoidable rope of taking N15 billion bond by an administration that has less than a year to wind up.
“We in the APC think that the N15 billion bond is a syndicated fund that the government wants to take at the twilight of the administration. “It is like a jamboree, particularly worrisome because history wants to repeat itself.
“Recall the timing of the N16.5 billion the same administration took in 2010, it came towards the very end of the first tenure and that is what the governor wants to do again.
“It is for unholy campaigns, it is a mortgage of the future of our children. It is atrocious and wicked to mortgage the future of a people in such a way.”
But Governor Elechi told the stakeholders that it would take his successor, four months to clear the repayment of the N16.5 billion he borrowed from the capital market in 2010, adding that the new N15 billion bond, would take the next administration, seven years to pay
Source: New Telegraph