Ogun now on financial life support, says Amosun

GOVERNOR Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State yesterday painted a gloomy picture of the financial status of the State and said  "Ogun State Government is broke."

Amosun who was in Abuja for the seventh National Assembly inauguration in company of former Governor of the State, Chief Segun Osoba added: "In fact, the State could not fund the last May wage bill on its own and had to resort to borrowing from the banks because the state's financial situation is precarious"

" What I met on ground, I can't explain it. The situation is very bad. In fact, we were not able to pay last month's salaries. We had to resort to bank loans to pay staff salaries. We are going to engage the services of competent independent financial experts to audit the state's finances, because we want to know what went wrong. We would not interfere with their investigations. They will also assist us to totally re-design and re-engineer the finances of the state.''

He continued: "Virtually all sectors of the economy in Ogun State needs to return to its past glory: education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, commerce, just everything is in comatose condition in the state.

"We are embarking on an intervention programme in these five cardinal areas. In the education sector, we are going to make education free- primary and secondary school. And not only that, we intend to provide qualitative education for the people.

Amosun said his government would transform all public hospitals from being mere consulting clinics to standard and efficient health care system.

"We will promote the development of the agricultural sector in such a way that it would nose-dive into major industrial revolution in the state and an avenue for wealth creation in the state."

He also said his administration would generate about 10,000 new jobs within the first 100 days in office to address the crisis of unemployment bedeviling the state.

Meanwhile, Osoba, has advised President Goodluck Jonathan to be guided by merit and fairness in the composition of his new cabinet.

Osoba hailed the emergence of Aminu Tambuwal as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives against the People's Democratic Party's (PDP) South - West candidate, pointing out that the development was a reflection of true democratic tenets.

"We stand for merit, PDP zoning is their headache and if they like, they can go on mourning their defeat, but we in ACN are interested in promoting the tenets of democracy in the country.

"Jonathan is a beneficiary of the principle of merit and democratic norms, so he should stand by his own words and actions and ensure that what he stood for should be allowed to spread to other arms of government," he said.

Well done OGD! Generations would remember you as the yeye leader who bought Ogun to its knees. Oloshi lasa-lasan

Amosun, you are borrowing to pay salaries now, yet bringing in more overheads and offering free education? What is the plan? We are not dunces o.

Even the UK is having to cut here and there to reduce deficit but you seem to wan to raise the deficit.

While you're resting on your oars, IMO state governor is meeting with Fashola to discuss partnership and you are attending yeye meetings in Abuja.

You better head down Lagos and discuss how you can jointly build roads to interlink Lagos to Ogun so that you can benefit from investments and attract the Lagos populace to buy and build homes in Ogun while providing good road network to facilitate easy commute from Lag to Ogun.

Odesko

Desola:

Amosun, you are borrowing to pay salaries now, yet bringing in more overheads and offering free education? What is the plan? We are not dunces o.

violent:

^^

It's somewhat obvious that majority of them don't have a sound blueprint on development!  They seem to be only interested in providing free goodies without knowing how to generate revenue or attract investors!

Amosun ought to know that for any business/organization to grow, it's revenue power ought to surpass it's cost of running, not the other way round. When a state is already overburdened with deficits, thanks to mismanagement of the acccursed ex-governor, the wise thing a subsequent governor ought to do on resuming office is to seek out for new ways to generate revenues, not offer services free of charge!

Amosun should be looking at selling assets that are being under utilized and if within his power, privatize certain fractions of his government.  He should also be looking for new means of attracting the interests of new investors to the state, like working in hand with the CBN to provide capital for would be investors!