By Abdallah el-Kurebe
Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto state has stated the 2017 budget performance was poor in the state because there was no funds to match the budgeted amount of N204 billion..
Speaking at a Budget Stakeholders Summit organised for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the state, the governor disclosed that the state government had a total inflow of N73 billion from internally generated revenue (IGR), Paris Club and federal allocations.
According to him, “I have to tell you the truth. We received an inflow of N73 billion as against the N204 billion budgeted in 2017. The amount came from internally generated revenue (IGR), federal allocation (FAAC) and Paris Club Funds. So, how can we perform optimally? This is the setback we had last year and we were not able to complete some of these physical projects like roads and bridges for people to see and judge us,” he said.
He explained that in actual sense, some projects were not meant to be completed within a year.
“Some projects are not expected to be started and completed as a time. Those have to overlap. Development partners don’t talk about building bridges but human capital development, healthcare delivery, etc. We have been trying in these areas,” Tambuwal emphasised.
Debunking the rumour that Sokoto state received loans totalling N100 billion, he said that even some soft loans applied for were deadlocked.
“We never took N100 billion loan. I wonder how these misguided persons are ridiculing themselves in the social media in order to tarnish our image when they do not have facts. What we did was to seek for soft loans and we followed due process after approval from the state House of Assembly. In fact, some of these loans are deadlocked and we cannot access them,” the governor explained.
He added that while the government welcomed criticisms, “Critics should always crosscheck their facts before posing them on social media and shun being used by political gladiators for cheap blackmail.
“It is unfortunate that educated people such as lecturers in universities could be so mischievous as to post falsehood and thereby misleading the people of the state. If you are doing this for politics, I can match your paymasters, word for word. What I am doing is between I and my God and I know there a Day of Reckoning,” Tambuwal retorted
He said that his administration will complete the ongoing projects as well as start new ones for the development of the state.
