Again, the political turf in Rivers State is getting tougher, not as a result of political violence, but this time for the use of government’s funds. Despite the huge revenue which accrues to the state monthly either in the form of internally generated income or allocations from the federation account, which enabled it to pass a N485.5 billion budget this year, its want to raise a N50 billion loan from some banks and has become a source of fresh acrimony in the state.
A few months ago, Governor Rotimi Amaechi got the approval of the Rivers State House of Assembly to access a N100 billion from the stock market. The bill to that effect got speedy passage, as the house argued that with the current realities in the state, there was a great need to make the law empowering the governor to access the bond very flexible.
Justifying the bond, the state government has alluded to dwindling revenue from the federation account and its internally generated revenue. At a recent outing, the governor openly admitted that insecurity had affected state revenue sources and by extension, caused capital flight from the oil-rich state.
Amaechi attributed the dwindling IGR of the state to the rising insecurity in the state “at a time when desperate politicians resorted to power play at the national level ahead of the 2015 elections and the recent influx of political thugs and miscreants that were chased out of the state when he assumed office in 2007.’ Amaechi lamented the resurgence of kidnapping in the state with specific reference to the of kidnap of some of his colleagues including a lawyer and a bishop recently in the state, – activities he thought had become relics of history. Ironically, the state government has been able to increase internally generated revenue since 2007 when Amaechi came into office.
Observers believe that this current resort to credit facilities is a poignant irony for Amaechi who had mapped out a robust and watertight revenue generating strategy that shot the state’s IGR from N2.5 billion to N6 billion monthly since he assumed office in 2007.
Amaechi has argued that: ‘’It was N2.5 billion, but now it is N6 billion monthly. It is not enough, we need to drive it up to N8 billion so we can pay our monthly recurrent expenditure. We did not introduce new taxes; all we did was to block the avenues that people used to steal our money.
So, there was no sharing of the state venue into private pockets. We reduced corruption, and that is why we are able to save more money for our people” It is for this reason that many stakeholders in the Rivers project are worried about the current move to take a N50 billion facility. For instance the Peoples Democratic Party in the state expressed a great concern over the current moves. Its chairman, Felix Obuah, expressed displeasure over Amaechi’s spending pattern since he assumed office.
They include N100 billion bond in February this year, the N50 billion as well as approval he sought to access the N30 billion Rivers State Reserve Fund, out of the N53 billion in the account. Obuah said all these loans were political loans and warned the prospective creditors that in-coming administration would not take the responsibility of repayment. But the Amaechi administration said that it had paid back 20 per cent of the loans it had sourced.
The PDP, in a statement, said it was saddened by “the reckless manner” in which Amaechi has threw the state into a debtor status in the past three years by borrowing billions of naira for no just cause. The party wondered why “lawmakers that are not properly constituted and lacking the legal standing to make laws and give authorization or undertake such legal actions will …be aiding the governor to squander the state resources and destroy the future of the people’’. This latest reaction was sequel to the Assembly approving another round of N50 billion loan for the administration.
To the PDP, the latest N50 billion loan by the governor is unnecessary and one too many. It regretted that development on ground in the state, the environment and the living condition of the people and residents did not reflect the claims by the government on the injection of the huge financial revenue and monthly collections by the Amaechi administration since inception. It wondered where the monies, the internally generated revenues, federal allocations and loans collected, had all gone. The PDP expected that the governor to explain these to the people first before asking for further financial aid from any institutions.
The party further accused the governor of sourcing for the loans for political purposes to enhance his sole sponsorship of the APC, in expectation of a presidential ticket. PDP big wigs including Chief Sergeant Awuse; Senator Adawari Pepple; Chairman of PDP Reconciliation Committee, Hon Olaka Wogu, and the supervising Minister of Education, Chief Nyesom Wike insisted that the proposed N50 billion loan to Amaechi is unacceptable and should not be granted by any financial institution.
”It is our view that any bank that goes further to deal with the Rivers State Government in honouring its loan application does so at its own risk, because Rivers people do not support such financial transactions and no legal authority backs it. The Rivers State House of Assembly remains non-functional and illegal in view of the events surrounding its operations, and therefore, does not give any of its members any right to approve any loan for the executive arm,” the PDP said. To the PDP in the state and other critics of the administration, the current development and quick recourse to credit facilities are evidence that the state is broke. They blame it on the governor’s profligacy in allegedly using state fund to prosecute political warfare both in the state and in Abuja, claiming that the governor has abandoned his duties to his people.
Amaechi’s place in history
Needless to say, in the beginning, things were robust in Rivers State because money was not the problem. Rivers State was described as the fastest growing economy in the country with massive infrastructural work going on while security was restored in a hitherto strife-torn state.
Also, phenomenal advance was made in the health and educational sectors as well as on road construction. According to public opinion, since the exit of Alfred Diete-Spiff’s administration in the old Rivers State, the state has not witnessed the rate of development seen under Amaechi. In fact true to his pledge in October 26, 2007, Amaechi is said to have saved the River’s about N1 billion every month from the state’s share of the federation account and he strove to actualise this ambitious strategic fiscal programme, keeping it in the State Reserve Fund.
The government has executed a lot of projects including the multi-billion Naira MonoRail project, while on February 17 and 18, 2014, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was on a two-day visit to the state, commissioned about 16 newly completed projects by Amaechi’s administration. Right now, the state needs to pay 500 medical doctors it had recently engaged to address labour issue and health improvement, all of who have cars attached to their positions.
There is also the payment of 13,000 teachers it engaged some months ago but who had not received salaries. To Amaechi, the prevalence of insecurity in the state has hampered operations of companies, forcing them outside Port Harcourt, which negatively affected the state’s internally generated revenue that would have hit N10 billion monthly. “Most of the companies ran to Lagos and some of them came to Port Harcourt, and later also ran back.
Things were improving before now with the Army, Police and the State Security Service (SSS), which enabled us to arrest the insecurity in the state.” He argued that recently though, “because of the power play at the national level ahead of the 2015 elections, the security of the state has degenerated badly, such that one is wondering whether we should not differentiate between politics of election and politics of leadership. It is also important for you to know the economic interest of the people, as against our private interest too.”
Of loan and politics
One clear accusation is that Amaechi is believed to be squandering state’s funds in fighting political battles in Abuja and at home. In the process, he seems to have abandoned statecraft, a situation critics allege , has led to his inability to pay workers’ salaries, especially teachers, and in some cases, slashing workers’ salary. Others observers and residents of the state believe that the governor has been unduly harassed, distracted and harangued with the immediate past police commissioner in the state as agent provocateur. Speaking on the legality or propriety of the approval of the loan, a Port Harcourtbased legal practitioner, Mr. Moses Oha, said that as long as the members of the house formed a quorum, wherever they sat was immaterial and whatever they approved or decided had the force of law. Oha accused those attacking Amaechi and the legislature over the approval of not wanting the embattled governor to have money to run the government so that they could brand him a failure.
Source: New Telegraph
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