Imo state is broke, Governor Okorocha cries out
28th Jan. 2016
Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo state on Wednesday, January 27, has stated that the state is broke as its monthly expenditure has surpassed its monthly statutory allocation from the federal government.
He added that there were no going back on the state government’s plan to concession the management of parastatals, The Sun reports.
The governor made this known when spoke to reporters at the Government House in Owerri , the state capital, saying that the monthly wage of the state had always been higher than what the state receives from federal allocations and internally generated revenue.
Okorocha said: “The monthly wage bill of the state is N4.2 billion which is far higher than what we receive from federal allocation including the internally generated revenue which means that the state government has always been operating on a deficit. As at December 31, 2015 the state received N1.9 billion from the Federal Government while the monthly wage bill of the state for the same period was N4.2 billion.”
“We cannot continue to patch a cracked wall as if all is well, we need to break it down in order to rebuild it, and the current wage bill of the state is beyond our capacity. Imo State now receives the least allocation among the South-East states because of the monthly repayment of the bailout fund which the state took from the Federal Government, a situation which has further compounded the financial situation of the state.”
Meanwhile, Okorocha had blamed the present economic hardship across Nigeria to the “dead” economy inherited by the ruling, All Progressives Congress.
He called for sacrifices from Nigerians and for the people to bear with President Muhammadu Buhari’s policies, which he assured, will navigate the country out of the present economic recession.
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