Olusegun Agagu

For its admission last Monday that it had a whopping N22billion in fixed deposits accounts which it claimed are not immediately needed, the Ondo State government has come under severe criticism from the State chapter of the Labour Party which accused the Agagu’s administration of engaging in falsehood and double standards.

In a released issued by its Director of Press in Akure on Sunday, LP expressed dismay at the disclosure by the State Finance Commissioner that while virtually all infrastructures in the State are in sorry states, while the people go to bed with rumbling stomach due to lack of jobs and while all state-owned industries had been closed down, it was strange that a government could tell the whole nation that yes, it had been saving money on behalf of the people. “This, in our own view is an admission that the people can die for all they care as long as there are interests to be collected from the banks where such monies are being kept,” LP noted.

Tayo Alasoadura, the State Finance Commissioner had last week addressed the press during which he disclosed that a sum of N22billion which was not immediately needed was being kept in fixed deposit accounts rather than leaving such funds idle with banks. He further added that this practice had yielded a sum of N1.5billion to the State in the last 5 years.

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But the LP while attributing the hurried confession of the Agagu’s government as to this unwholesome practice to the rash of probes into its finances by both the Independent Corrupt Practices and related offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), noted that the government was not saying the truth when it says that it had saved that sum of money.

“Was it not this government which attempted late last year to procure a loan of Thirty Billion Naira (N30billion) on behalf of the State to fund what it termed ‘monumental projects’ through a consortium of banks while an Akure-based stock brokerage firm acted as the leading facilitator? But for our vigilance, when we cried out to the Presidency and other authorities, the money would have been collected while the people of the State would have been saddled with the debt profile. Again, for a government which says it has no immediate use for N22bn which it finds ‘convenient to lodged in interest yielding fixed deposit accounts,’ why did it embarked on the sale of Ondo government prime properties such as the State investment in the Spring Bank Plc shares, the State portion of the Oduduwa House in Victoria Island in Lagos among other primes assets of the State bequeathed to it by its founding fathers? These are question that demand answers.

“Flowing from all these, it is obvious that there are no such money as being claimed by Agagu in any fixed deposit accounts; rather, the admission by Agagu that he put the monies into interest yielding accounts on behalf of the people was a smokescreen to explain away to both the ICPC and the EFCC what he did with the money. If not, why was it that it wasn’t until the Finance Commissioner (Alasoadura) and several officials of the administration were invited by the two anti-graft agencies to explain their roles in the allegations of diversion of funds, abuse of office and money laundry that they went to town with this cock and bull story?

According to Olabisi, “in Ondo State, the last five years had been exerting on the harried people of the State. With over N300billion in Agagu’s kitty, the people are worse for it, there is no potable water any where while billion of naira is said to have been spent, no good roads, employment opportunities is zero, hunger stalks the people yet, Agagu can tell the world that while his people die by installments, he saves money for them, this is nothing but an obvious lie. We challenge him to name the banks in which these monies are being kept and how much has actually accrued to the State in the last five years since this obviously self serving and unwholesome practices have been going on and what such was expended on,”.

 

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