THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE.

#AbiaOnline
I am reproducing a long comment I made last night in response to tissues of lies and fabrications published by one of the usual suspects and gleefully shared by his co-travelers in the kingdom of political desperation.
Apparently they were numbed by the publication of projects done by Governor Ikpeazu which his Chief Press Secretary, Enyinnaya Appolos, shared with clearly marked picture evidence. It is instructive to note that not even one of the projects has been disputed by any Abian or resident. Even video evidence of the projects were shared without dispute and hence the desperadoes had to change course and resort to their usual lies.
Please spare time to read through and let the truth set you free from lies and ignorance.
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It is out of respect for you and Abians that I am glorifying these tissues of lies and misinformation with a response. In these days of turning Rice to Yeast, it is important I make a detailed response based on information available to me, mostly from listening to the Honorable Commissioner for Finance, Mr Obinna Oriaku, who regularly briefs Abians on the financial position of our state.
My response will be itemized for clarity.
1. Governor Ikpeazu never collected any N40b as bank loan. In any case no bank grants loans to any State any longer as the Debt Management Office (DMO) has closed that window due to the unpredictable nature of recent federal revenue and allocations. This information is publicly verifiable by merely visiting DMO website or reading regular newspapers.
It is because of the closure of the borrowing window that the federal government has been intervening through bail outs. The DMO website is there for anybody to confirm the level of indebtedness of any state with regards to both local and foreign loan.
The federal govt, on assumption, bought over bank loans owed by states and restructured them to 20 years as it was becoming difficult for states to even meet monthly statutory obligations. Verify this from Ministry of Finance.
While states like Imo and cross river were getting N32b ,N40b respectively, Abia only got N6b as restructured amount because the state is among the least exposed states in the country. These facts can be verified.
Why will anyone assume that Governor Ikpeazu borrowed N40b? Answer is very simple, IGNORANCE.
On assumption of office, the Governor requested for approval to borrow N30b and it was given by the house of assembly. That approval was never actualized. NO KOBO WAS BORROWED based on that approval. Debt management office (DMO) can confirm that as no state can borrow from banks without DMO approval.
Please feel free to quote me that I stated that the Government of Dr Ikpeazu did not borrow kobo on the basis of that N30b approval given in 2015.
The house also approved N10b loan request but that was a condition stated by the Fed govt before any state can access bail out from Excess crude. Every state, except lagos state, applied and got same approval from their legislative houses.
I am aware that the federal government gave that loan condition to states in order to avoid seriously impacting national reserves. If the author had taken his secondary school economics classes serious he will understand that transaction better.
This N10b is apparently not what he referred to as N13b in his post. He may have been thinking of the N14.1b loan approval given to the state as salary and pension bailout. if yes, let me use this opportunity to guide him and those who may have been misled by him.
Abia actually aggregated outstanding salary, pensions and gratuities to N39b but only N14.1b was approved for the state by CBN. There was a requirement for the legislature to approve the sum as loan from CBN at 9% interest for 20 years period before it will be issued.
Governor Ikpeazu set up a committee to manage the disbursement of the facility with Labour unions in the state making up more than 80% of committee members. They were the folks that decided on how to apply the bailout and they also monitored the disbursement end to end.
It is note worthy that ICPC applauded Abia on the transparent management of the fund and even when a National Assembly verification panel was set up they never visited Abia even when they were at neighboring states because they already saw the ICPC report giving thumbs up to Abia for not diverting one kobo from the money.
It is also on record that the Chairman of NLC in Abia, Comrade Osigwe, applauded the management of the bailout too. Who then is in a better position to suggest otherwise.
2. A careful review of my point one will tell you why Abia still has outstanding salary/pensions and gratuity issues after the bailout. Simply put, the state had outstanding salaries/pensions and gratuity shortfall of N39b but was only given N14.1b.
Make no mistake about this, most of that N39b came from the 1999-2007 regime debts. For instance, it is common knowledge in Abia that under that regime, our LGA system was so abused that Aba North had unpaid salaries of 9 months that was carried over to the next regime. I invite Abians who worked at Aba north then to come forward and contradict me.
That was also the period most of those now discovered to be with fake certificates flooded our LGAs, parastatals and MDAs. Ghosts multiplied within the system and formed part of the payroll because of the role played by a certain actor. Ask Abians for the identity of the person.
Do you know that it was more fashionable in those years to be a sub treasurer than to be a permanent secretary? Of course you know why, don’t you?
The good news is that Governor Ikpeazu has now, without much noise, automated our pay roll system and centralized it in such a way that no sub treasurer can manipulate the pay roll and add ghosts. The new system has already identified 2600 yet to be cleared ghosts and all our pensioners are paid same time, online real time, against the manual approach of the past that made our revered senior citizens stand for hours under trees at sub treasuries.
Permit me to ask the author a simple question: if you are a civil servant who was criminally receiving salary of 10 ghosts in addition to yours will you be happy with the reforms or inundate government to continue to pay without verification?
3. Abia gets an average of N2.2b, as stated by the author but the monthly wage bill averaged 2.8b untill it was brought down to an average of N2.2b by Governor Ikpeazu using various verification tools. In fact the wage bill was above N3b when he came in and only dropped to N2.2b around December 2016. We have just entered April 2017.
From the supposed analysis written by the misinformed author, it means the state can’t and didn’t even pay EEDC bills with what he reported, not to talk of paying contractors for road cleaning since the roads constructed are not being acknowledged as expense.
Yet Governor Ikpeazu has constructed over 32 roads with some only re-asphalted while others were completely reconstructed. CPS Appolos offered a list that also included 2 Bridges that have been delivered alongside a second to non investment house recently commissioned by VP Osibanjo.
There are currently in excess of 70 ongoing road projects in Abia state spread across the 3 geopolitical zones. May be they are Freebies, in the mind of the author.
4. Before Governor Ikpeazu took over, our monthly IGR averaged N500m but has grown to N1b in the last few months. This is commendable as people willingly pay taxes when their money is visibly working for them. These Tax receipts are also obviously being deployed effectively.
Top quality contractors like Setraco and Arab Contractors have been mobilized to Faulks (Ariaria) road and Umuahia-Ubakala road respectively. I don’t know how old the author is but I can tell him that the last time such high quality contractors worked at Aba and Umuahia was during the regime of Late Chief Sam Mbakwe in the 80s. Certainly funds for payment for such jobs won’t come from his N2.2b monthly receipt and in the mind of the author they must have been FREE WORKS.
5. Abia state only received one tranche of Paris Club refund which came to N10.6b. While President Buhari and the Ministry of Finance recommended that states that received the funds use 50% (N5.3b in this case) to pay outstanding salaries/pensions and the rest for infrastructure development, Abia actually used more than “50% “(N5.8b) for salary arrears with N5.3b still deployed to infrastructure renewal. All after approval by the house of assembly.
Abia NLC Chairman who was a member of the committee that disbursed the funds confirmed that in the media. If he doesn’t know who should know?
That ICPC actually praised Abia for the prudently transparent way the bailout funds were managed is also public record.
NO Nigerian state, even as at today, has received the second tranche of Paris Club refund and that again is verifiable.
These facts clearly show how jaundiced this writer is even with his tissues of lies.
6. The obviously paid-for writer decided to be economical with the truth when he said that local govts receive more than N100m monthly. He probably does not even know how many LGAs we have in Abia as many of the e-rats of the desperadoes are not from Abia and don’t live in Abia.
I recall a month when JAAC allocation was N1.2b for abia state with FAAC at N1.6b. Do the maths and see how much 17 LGAs must have received from N1.2m when shared with all 17 of them.
Under the local govt accounts we have three statutory payments; local Govt works which averages N850m, Primary school teachers salary N650m and Local Govt pension N340m monthly. You can add up and then see how shallow his thoughts are on monthly N100m for each local government . This state of affairs also accounts for the gaps in salary payments as local govts cannot borrow to pay salaries.
7. Again, he is so ignorant about public sector funding that he does not know that the 13% derivation is included in the N2.2b average he stated. For clarity there is no special or separate income line in monthly receipts called 13% . They are all embedded in our total monthly receipts. So N2.2b includes VAT receipts, oil sales, revenue from customs, 13% derivation receipts etc.
8. The author is making himself a laughing stock, like the proverbial village idiot, among enlightened minds who understand how difficult it is for govts now. He Should swallow his anger that there are visible projects going on under the watch of Governor Ikpeazu even with the distractions and recession.
We will continue to showcase those projects and allow folks to wonder how Governor Ikpeazu is doing so much with so little under biting economic conditions. It is public knowledge that ongoing works at Faulks road will cost the state N6.4b while Osisioma fly over is above N4b and Mobilization fee for the fly over has already been paid and work is ongoing. Both projects are running ahead of schedule.
9. Abia is mostly only owing pensioners and teachers as the state is just about up to date with MDAs that account for over 80% of the state’s work force. Some parastatals that are supposedly autonomous and revenue generating, like Abiapoly, also have challenges with salary payments even after receiving subventions and keeping their internally generated revenue.
But you can be sure that soon the issue of outstanding teachers salary and pensions will be history as the Governor is determined to not only solve that challenge but also do so in a sustainable manner.
Currently the govt is removing unpatriotic people that have made it difficult to have a lean wage bill like Ebonyi State whose wage bill averages N1.3b against N3b Governor Ikpeazu met. The so called ghost workers are actually your friends and parents in the civil service who receive multiple salaries with multiple names and documentations.
For instance, one staff of Umuahia north LGA is on level 14 in the LGA payroll but also receiving salary as level 13 staff of Amachara General hospital. With his ill gotten “level 27” he must be among those crying highest about non regular payment of salaries whereas he is among those killing our state slowly.
Ha nile ga apu!
So far, Abia has reduced the pension bill by over N70m from N390m before last month verification. Also about 600 teachers were not identified in the recent verifications and that excludes the 136 discovered in December as ghosts.
Ha apuola from our wage bill.
Shockingly, there are about 1460 workers in our local govt system with fake WAEC certificates that have just been discovered and will be removed this month . Those folks were probably your friends and brethren that you have been blackmailing the govt on their behalf with fairy tales of “Ikpeazu sacking LGA workers who supported opposition parties”.
May be it is now the case that every certificate forger is a member of the political opposition in Abia state. Is that so sir?
Also recently about 28 workers, including lecturers, with fake WAEC certificates printed at Oluwole street in Lagos were discovered at Abia Poly. Uwa ntorr situation!
With all these determined sanitization efforts our wage bill will go down further and Abia will most likely not be owing genuine workers afterwards. Governor Okezie Ikpeazu came to government with a blueprint and a plan to change the story of Abia State. Quietly he is delivering.
Check out his economic blueprint via http://okezievictorikpeazu.com/images/news/documents/Abia%20Economic%20Blueprint%20V8%20(1).pdf
10. The author further displayed high level of ignorance when he even added security votes as inflows. But more importantly what he gave as security vote for Governor Ikpeazu can only come from a brain that converts Rice to Yeast on regular basis. Security votes come from our funds and they are not receipts but rather expenditure items fully approved in the budget.
Governor Ikpeazu’s security vote is much less than half of the amount quoted. He is also on self imposed 50% salary cut alongside his aides. May be you see that as small sacrifice for Abia, even with recession also affecting him and his aides.
No issues, but you must state the correct figures if you have them or shut up. Don’t conjure or turn outflow into inflow as if you are dealing with Nigerian Customs with intent to evade legitimate tax.
11. I have always personally wondered if Abia citizens will be satisfied if Governor Ikpeazu had focused on merely paying the obviously ghosts bloated wage bill of civil servants that represent less than 5% of our over 4m population and abandon responsibilities to the remaining 95%.
Yet I must restate that even with all he is doing in other areas only a few parastatals and a few LGAs have serious salary outstanding issues of 3-6 months. 80% of our civil servants are not more than a month behind in salaries as at TODAY. The rest of our citizens have roads, bridges, hospitals, agricultural projects etc to celebrate as dividends of democracy.
Much more will certainly be done as the will, determination and energy to do much more abound in our humble and hard working state chief executive and his team. Just like the desperate transducers have stopped sharing pictures of bad Faulks road, soon the usual suspects will not have salary outstanding to discuss.
Thanks for reading, my people. An enlightened opposition is a great asset in a democracy but a maliciously ignorant one is found only in the land of DESPERADOES.
Abia State is not the land of desperadoes but rather a state populated by folks whose children have been the best in education for the past 3 years.
JOK