The Presidency has issued a warning to Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele
\nFayose over the allegations he made about the federal government,
\npertaining to the September federal allocation of N389 billion.<\/p>\n
Reacting to Fayose, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media
\nand Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, warned the governor to stop making
\nunsubstantiated allegations pertaining to the running of the economy by
\nthe federal government.<\/p>\n
Shehu, who described Fayose\u2019s comment as reckless and typical of his past
\nsaid \u201cthe governor didn\u2019t get his facts correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
This came as a reaction to the remarks Fayose made at the recent
\ngraduation ceremony of College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti, in which he
\nasked President Muhammadu Buhari to address Nigerians on the state of the
\neconomy.<\/p>\n
Fayose had specifically accused the Buhari administration of paying out
\nthe lowest-ever federally distributed allocations among the three tiers of
\nthe government.<\/p>\n
According to the presidential spokesman, records of such past allocations
\nshowed \u201cthat the lowest-ever allocation to the three tiers was issued by
\nthe PDP-led Goodluck Jonathan administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
While calling on the Ekiti Governor to be mindful of his utterances, Shehu
\nsaid: \u201cGovernor Fayose needs to be advised to desist from spreading
\nfalsehood against the person and government of President Muahmmadu Buhari
\nas has become characteristic of him. He needs to get his facts right
\nbefore making accusations of the nature he makes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe governor equally knows full well that his party in government ruined
\nthe economy to the extent that workers in 27 states went for several
\nmonths without salary. This crisis situation has now been reversed in
\nnearly all the states. Governor Fayose is himself in line for the
\ncollection of his state\u2019s bailout.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the PDP federal government, ministries were not given overhead
\ncosts for five months while the capital budget was unpaid for six months
\nin the run-up to the exit of the PDP administration. Is there anyone in
\nthat party with a moral justification to criticise the Buhari
\nadministration which is working hard to clean up the mess they (PDP) left
\nbehind?\u201d<\/p>\n
Shehu, who used statistics in backing up his position, stated that the
\nlowest monthly allocation in the last 12 months, amounting to N358
\nbillion, was distributed in May this year under the PDP government, adding
\nthat the figure rose to N380 billion in June before it fell to N373
\nbillion in October.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cRecords obtained from the Ministry of Finance show that the
\ndecline in federally collected revenues shared by the three tiers didn\u2019t
\njust set in but had become clearly manifest under the PDP administration.
\nIn February, N480 billion was distributed. In March it was N459bn; April,
\nN385bn; May, N357bn; June N389bn, and July, N526bn. In August, N499bn was
\npaid out; September, N412bn and N374 in October.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs most Nigerians are aware, this decline in revenue has chiefly been
\ncaused by the drastic fall in oil prices, compounded by the free-wheeling
\ncrude oil theft which was allowed to thrive under the PDP administration
\nin which Governor Fayose was a leading character.\u201d<\/p>\n
The presidential spokesman further noted that the low allocation under the
\npresent administration was a temporary phase that would soon go away, \u201cas
\nthe various measures put in place by the government to block leakages in
\nrevenue generation come to fruition\u201d.<\/p>\n
On how the problem of declining allocation would be addressed, Shehu said:
\n\u201cNon-oil revenue is expected to rise substantially with the effective
\ntake-off of the Treasury Single Account (TSA). With this in place,
\ngovernment now has a framework for understanding the picture of accruable
\nrevenues in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). They will no
\nlonger tax and spend, but do so only in line with their budgets.<\/p>\n
\u201cReforms and the close monitoring in the Federal Inland Revenue Service
\nand the Customs are all expected to shoot up federally collected revenues
\nand would, in a short period from now, start to move the country from
\nover-reliance on oil as promised by the president.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stressing that President Buhari did not need the unnecessary heckling by
\nGovernor Fayose to achieve all these, Shehu added that, \u201cNeither is the
\ncountry helped in any way by leaders peddling falsehood.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Presidency has issued a warning to Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose over the allegations he made about the federal government, pertaining to the September federal allocation of N389 billion.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n