By Femi Makinde, Ado-Ekiti

Friday, 4 Feb 2011

Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State has said that the state government will soon go to the capital market to raise bond. He attributed the need for the move to the “precarious financial situation” of the state.

According to a statement made available to our correspondent in Ado-Ekiti on Thursday by the Special Adviser on Media, Mr. Mojeed Jamiu, the governor said this when the Managing Director of the First City Monument Bank, Mr. Ladi Balogun, paid him a courtesy call.

The statement was silent on the amount to be raised at the capital market. But when asked, the special adviser to the governor said that the amount had not been determined.

Fayemi had raised the alarm over the debt profile of the state on October 15, 2010, when the court sacked the administration of Mr. Segun Oni.

Fayemi had put the debt at N40bn but he said that the state would renegotiate the interest on loans got from some banks.

However, the governor called for the support of FCMB to develop the key sectors of the state economy.

The governor identified the sectors to include agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, health, education, urban renewal initiative, job creation initiative and project finance being handled by contractors in the state.

Fayemi said, “Yes, it is true that we are going to the capital market to raise funds, due to our precarious financial situation and we will also look into the contractor financing, which you have proposed even though we may not be disposed to giving out new contracts until the ongoing ones are defrayed.”

The governor stated that his administration was committed to building enduring, long-term and mutually benefiting relationships with financial institutions in the country to strengthen the economy of the state.

Earlier, FCMB’s managing director had said that the bank was interested in helping Ekiti raise the intended bond as one of the issuing houses.

Balogun said FCMB would collaborate with Ekiti State Government through its contractor financing programme. He revealed that a total sum of N40bn had been earmarked for the scheme.

He also said that civil servants in the state could benefit from the credit direct system being operated by FCMB, which he said, would help them obtain loans within 24 hours, “even when they don’t operate accounts with the bank.”

Meanwhile, Fayemi has reiterated the commitment of his administration to making poverty history in the state through collaboration with development-based organisations.

The governor, who made the pledge at the official inauguration of a community development project at Covenant Avenue, Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, stressed that the welfare of the citizens of the state remained the most important duty of his administration.

He said the people of the state would be allowed to have their say in the location and execution of community-based projects to enhance their standard of living and spread development to all nooks and crannies of the state in consonance with the eight-point agenda of his administration.

Source: Punch