…Says State’s debt profile is alarming
The Senator Andy Uba Governorship Campaign Organisation, SAUGCO, has asked former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Professor Charles Soludo, to stop feigning ignorance about the total debt liability of the state he so desperately seeks to govern.
Soludo, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA in next week’s Anambra governorship election, had while speaking on Channels TV programme, Politics Today, October 28, shocked the show’s host, Seun Okinbaloye, and viewers when he could not put a figure to the state’s debt profile.
The Professor of Economics had been pointedly asked if he knew what the state’s debt overhang was, and how he intended to deal with it.
He could not offer a definitive answer but said he would find out when he becomes governor.
Undeterred, Okinbaloye pressed further, pointing out that statistics from the country’s Debt Management Office, DMO, indicated that Anambra owed N60 billion in domestic debt, and $116 million in external loans.
However, the real shock emerged when the eminent Professor said: “We are going to verify that. Borrowed from who, who are the creditors?”
But SAUGCO said it saw Soludo’s demurred stance on a very sensitive issue that affects the lives of the people as cheap politics and an attempt to cover up the sins of his pay masters to the detriment of the State.
It said in a statement signed by Hon Victor Ogene, its Director, Media and Publicity:
“We are however happy that APGA’s antics are already known to the people who are waiting to finally send them packing on November 6.
“Ironically, data released by the DMO on December 31, 2020 indicated that Anambra’s domestic debt stood at N59,013 billion as at September 30, 2020, while the state’s external debt profile was $115,886 million as at June, 2020.
“In deed, it is shocking that a Professor Soludo who should have such information at the tip of his fingers, would elect to play politics with such information crucial to the lifeblood of the state, or was simply being mischievous,” Hon. Victor Afam Ogene, Director, Media and Publicity of the Senator Andy Uba Governorship Campaign Organisation, SAUGCO said in a statement today.
“Whichever is the case, Professor Soludo owes ndi Anambra the patriotic duty of researching into what really is the debt liability of our dear state, Anambra.
“In fact, for a man who was two years ago, in November 2019, given the task of fashioning out the grandiose 50-year Anambra 2070 Vision Agenda not to be seized of important data such as the profit and loss account of the state, speaks eloquently about his capacity for accomplishing small, practical assignments.
“Perhaps, it is this obvious flaw that caused former Minister of Finance and current Director General of the World Trade Organization, WTO to author a damning confidential report on Soludo in January, 2015.
“As an irreducible minimum, the Senator Andy Uba Governorship Campaign Organisation requests Professor Soludo to undertake the urgent task of finding out the exact and total debt liability of Anambra state – for, in accomplishing this task, Professor Soludo would have rendered an invaluable service to a people he so eagerly crave to govern.”