Ogun govt denies accessing N100bn bond

THE Senator Ibikunle Amosun-led administration in Ogun State has denied reports published in some national dailies (not Tribune) that it has sent an executive bill to the state House of Assembly to secure N100 billion bond from the capital market.This was disclosed on Tuesday at a news conference addressed by the state Commissioner for Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, in Abeokuta, the state capital.Adeosun, flanked by his Information and Strategy counterpart, Alhaji Yusuph Olaniyonu, said that the bond instrument was not the appropriate step to address the financial predicament of the state.She claimed that the executive only sent a bill to the House of Assembly seeking to set up a legal framework or process to be followed before any government in the state could access loan.The commissioner said, 'if the bill is eventually passed into law, it will serve as a an instrument for financial discipline which will be binding on the present and the successive administrations.'It seeks to repeal the existing Ogun State bond law which is so weak and allows government to seek for bond loan anytime it desires.''The commissioner further noted that if the bill became law, it would serve as a means of controlling the amount of money that could be borrowed by the executive which would be based on the previous year's revenue generation and the current debt profile.'We are actually on a financial recovery process and what we are doing presently is to reduce the inherited loan significantly while improving on our revenue generation drive.'In this regard, we have reduced our inherited debt from N87 billion to about N60 billion while the internally generated revenue has increased from N17.9 billion in 2010 to N25.2 billion in 2011.'What we need now is not long term financial instrument like bond but medium term instruments like promissory notes and contractors financing,'she said.
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