Katsina State Govt. owes N29bn – official

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The Katsina State Government says it is indebted to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and a commercial bank to the tune of N29 billion.

Alhaji Farouk Jobe, the Special Adviser to the Governor Masari on Banking and Finance disclosed this during the annual budget break down on Tuesday in Katsina.

He said the state government collected the loans to develop its infrastructure and settle pensions and gratuities of its retired staff.

Jobe disclosed that the state government collected a loan of N11.5billion as bailout from the CBN, which was used to settle the pensions and gratuities of over 11,000 retired civil servants.

“The previous administration in the state refused to settle the pensions and gratuities of retired 11, 000 civil servants in the state.

“We also collected a loan of N10billion to develop our education, health, water supply, environment and road sectors from the Federal Government.

“Out of the N10billion loan, we allocated N2billion to health sector; where we spent N1billion to rehabilitate Katsina General Hospital, we allocated N500million to Daura General Hospital and N500million to Funtua General Hospital,” he said.

Jobe revealed that the renovation and upgrading of the three General Hospitals had reached 80 per cent completion.

The adviser revealed that the state government also collected N5billion loan from a commercial bank to complete road rehabilitation started by the previous administration and the new ones started by the present administration.

“We have used the loan to complete over 200 kilometres of road projects in the three senatorial zones in the state.

“The state governments also collected N2billion loan under the poverty alleviation programme from the Central Bank of Nigeria for the development of Small and Medium Enterprises in the state.

NAN reported that the loan for the small and medium enterprises had been distributed to over 500,000 youths and women that are engaged in small businesses across the state.

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