The Ondo State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Emammuel Igbasan, has said Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu met a debt of N220 billion when he came into office in 2017.

However, he said the debt has been reduced to about N92 billion through prudent management of resources by the governor and his team.

He said the administration’s decision to seek the input of citizens in its budgeting processes since 2017 has helped the state to receive several global partnerships.

The commissioner spoke in Akure, the state capital, at an interactive session with members of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the state.

“Right now, it has reduced to between N90 billion and N92 billion, including multilateral debt,” Mr Igbassan said.

“All the salaries we paid were part of the debt.

“The cumulative debt of pensioners was N35 billion when we took over. We decided to give N200 million to them yearly to sort the pensioners’ debt. How they handled it is another ball game, but I have my reservations on it.

“We also allocated N300 million for levels 9 to 15 in 2019.

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“As of today, with all the work that has been done, I am not sure we are owing up to N10 billion as conceptual debt.”

The previous administration of Olusegun Mimiko could not pay workers’ salaries at its twilight, owing several months of unpaid salaries.

By the time Mr Mimiko’s tenure ended, workers were owed about seven months in arrears. Mr Mimiko had blamed the problem on drastic shortfalls in revenues accruing to the state from the Federation Account.

On the Ayetoro sea incursion, Mr Igbasan said it is a source of worry to Governor Akeredolu.

“Ayetoro is a problematic and pathetic one for us as a state. If you look at the historical heritage of that place and their enterprises, it is not a place that should go into extinction,” he said.

“There are so many theories because for me, before I proffer solution, I want to dig deep into the root of the problem so that I won’t be dealing with the symptoms.

“I told Mr Governor that before we can give solutions to the problem in Ayetoro, we need to know the cause. There’s no vacuum in nature. If you look at the proximity of Ondo State to Lagos and the volume of sand that was pulled from the sea to create a city where they drove the sea several miles away, there’s a possibility the sand was gotten from Ondo State.

“Some states erected sea-breakers at the bottom of the sea which would change the natural cause of the flow of the seawater, that might have been the repercussions that we are facing here. Another perspective is the activities of the oil companies.

“While I was doing my research, I stumbled on the information. As far back as 1958, it has been predicted that something like this would happen.

“The rise in climate change and the erosion level can be the cause too in Ayetoro. They have awarded numerous projects to salvage the issues in Ayetoro, one of them brought in sand to fill the place but within a few days they ran out of sand.”

The commissioner also noted that there had been many other perspectives to the issue, but stressed the need to conduct a critical survey in finding a lasting solution.

He said Mr Akeredolu was passionate about the issue of Ayetoro and had constituted a committee to raise the funds needed to address it.

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