Amaechi To Withdraw N19b From Reserved Fund As Assembly Grants Request
Governor Amaechi’s request to the Rivers State of Assembly to allow him to withdraw the sum of N19 billion from the State reserved fund was granted today.
In the plenary today, all the 22 assembly members, voted in favor of the request, soon after the leader of the House, Hon Chidi Lloyd called for the approval of the request, which read on the floor of the house in a letter dated October 20, 2014, by the Speaker, Rt Hon. Otelemaba Dan-Amachree.
Speaking to his colleagues, Hon. Lloyd, member representing Emohua Constituencysaid; “The request before we couldn’t have come at a better time. The essence of saving is for rainy days such as this. We are lucky that we are approving the governor to access funds that have been saved. These funds will be ploughed in ensuring that in line with the policy of the government not to leave any project abandoned; government will channel these funds towards completing capital projects.”
Responding to questions from journalists soon after the sitting of the House, chairman of the House committee on Finance, Hon Josiah John Olu; “As you are aware, the governor sent a request to the House seeking our permission to access N19bn of our reserved fund. It is important for us to tell Rivers people that this was necessary because we are all aware that the money we get from FAAC, the centre is dry. This month the commissioner of finance and the accountant-general just came back from the FAAC meeting telling us that there was no money to even share to the states.
“You know the magnitude of projects that the government has embarked upon. It’s important that we access those funds so that we could be able to pay our contractors; so that government can function, so that government can run.
“Let’s not also forget that this is money that was saved by this present administration. The 6th Assembly passed a law that we should be saving one billion Naira every month for the rainy day. The rainy day is here and that is why we are trying to access the fund. We are not borrowing, Rivers Assembly did not approve any borrowing for the governor to access money from any bank, we are just accessing our own reserve fund so that we can meet our obligations.”
He furthermore said; “I want to tell Rivers people that this Assembly approved that the governor can go to the bond market to access a one hundred billion Naira bond, which the governor came back, we broke it into two trenches. The first trench was supposed to be N50 billion. It is important for us to know that we have not accessed event that N50 billion. Anybody that knows the process that is involved in accessing funds from the money market as it relates to bonds knows that its a tedious work.
“As it is now we have not even published so we are even far from accessing the N50 billion, so it’s not part of our debt profile. Rivers State is one of the states in the country that is least indebted because we are servicing our loans and our debts. In the wisdom of the governor, he insisted that virtually all that we get from IGR should be channeled to servicing the loans so that when he leaves office there will be very little debt that the incoming government will take over from him.”
It will be recalled that the reserved fund was established through a law of the House of Assembly in 2008, for the state government to compulsorily save the sum of N1 billion every month.
