The Ahmed Joda-led transition committee
has urged President, Muhammadu Buhari, to
borrow immediately if he must offset the
backlog of unpaid salaries.
According to Joda, in order to deal with
crippling fuel crisis, and backlog of unpaid
salaries by states and the federal government,
Buhari must “borrow immediately or use CBN
(Central Bank) advances for salaries and fuel
subsidies to avoid chaos.”
The committee revealed further that the
handover notes from the Goodluck Jonathan
administration showed aggregate contractor
liabilities of N4 trillion as at April 2015, out of
which the Ministry of Education owed the
most at N1.2 trillion, followed by the finance
ministry which has N467.7 billion.
According to the exclusive report obtained by
Premium Times, the committee warned Buhari
that, it would be irrational to rely on the
purported huge balances the former
government claimed it left behind.
Among its discoveries as regards some claims
made by the former government, he said: “the
aging of these liabilities was not provided; a
detailed list of contracts was not provided and
therefore, some balances maybe double counted
(eg contracts funded through debt maybe
captured in both MoF and the contracting
Ministry); some balances may be disputed.
“Therefore, liabilities may change once
settlement/judgement is reached; no
documentation was provided to confirm if the
projects were executed to the agreed
specifications; some contracts maybe cancelled
or terminated.
“The mandate of this Task-Force is to confirm
the existence of the liability and authenticate the
accuracy of information provided in the
handover notes. The Government should only
recognise the liabilities verified and confirmed
by this Task-Force,” he said.
In a related development, the transition
committee has asked the president to sack
the last-minute appointees by the immediate
past president, Jonathan, especially after
losing the March 28 presidential election.

Sources: Naij.com news , Premium Times