Rivers Assembly Justifies N50bn Loan Approval

The Rivers State House of
Assembly has assured Rivers people Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi’s administration would pay back all the money it has borrowed before the end of its tenure.
The Deputy Speaker of the state Assembly, Hon Leyii Kwanee who gave the assurance in a reaction to the accusation by the State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that Governor Amaechi was piling up loans for future generations, said the state cannot borrow from any bank without showing the ability to pay back.
The state PDP through its chairman’s spokesman, Jerry Needam, has flayed the state lawmakers loyal to the governor for authorising the governor to source for N50 billion from the capital market.
The  State  Assembly had on Monday given approval for the Rivers State Government to procure a loan of  N50 billion from Access Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc to enable her complete  ongoing projects in the state.
But Kwanee disclosed that the process of Rivers State repaying her loan was on-going and that the total debt by the state is N65 billion.
“As I speak, we are repaying all our debts, you cannot borrow from any bank without showing the ability to repay, so, the first one charge on all our profit is repayment and then we pay our overhead and projects’’, Kwanee said.
The lawmaker who accused the  critics  of being ignorant of the facts behind the loan, recalled that when the same issue was raised sometime ago, the House had to summon the Commissioner for Finance, Hon Chamberlin Peterside to give a detailed explanation of how the funds were being used and he told the House that most of these loans were tied to the state’s internally generated revenue.
Disclosing that some of the loans would expire this year, Kwanee said the N50 billion that was approved by the House on Monday has already been provided for in the state’s 2014 budget.
According to him, there are specific plans that were spelled out in the budget and the money would be spent accordingly.
“If you were in the House yesterday, you will remember when my colleague from Abua/OduaLocal Government Area, Hon Augustine Ngo raised the issue of Abua/Odual road, this fund is needed to fast track all the development projects going on in the state”, he said.
The lawmaker also dismissed the allegation by the PDP that the approved loans were being used by Governor Amaechi to finance the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying Amaechi does not own APC and so could not have used state’s resources to fund the party.