The All Progressives Congress (APC) has kicked against Governor Caleb Mutfwang’s request to the Plateau House of Assembly for approval to acquire a N15 billion loan, accusing the governor of corrupt practices.

Mr Mutfwang’s request was read to the parliament by the speaker, Moses Sule, during Thursday’s plenary, which was the first sitting of the 10th Assembly.

Mr Mutfwang said he would use the loan to clear a backlog of civil servants’ salary arrears and acquire farm inputs for farmers. The approval was granted by the lawmakers at the plenary. 

But the APC, in a statement by its spokesperson, Sylvanus Namang, said that as a critical stakeholder in the Plateau project, they seriously objected to the loan because the governor did not follow due process.

The opposition party claimed that PDP’s two-third majority in the state parliament was not a licence for recklessness and arbitrariness which, if left unchecked, Plateau would be worse for more turbulent days ahead.

According to the APC statement, the reasons for the loan were as unconvincing as they were not tenable.

“Government is a continuum, and the past dispensation had made adequate budgetary provisions for payment of workers’ salaries and very essential products like fertilisers, given the fact that Plateau was largely an agrarian state,” noted APC. “This bogus N15 billion loan approval is particularly more worrisome because for a loan to be collected, certain steps are clearly spelt out in the Plateau State Debt Management Law.”

The opposition party added that the steps must be “duly and diligently” followed before any financial institution, local or foreign, could be considered.

“First, the State Debt Management Advisory Committee must sit to discuss the purpose and necessity of the loan for the state. Furthermore, Plateau cannot operate as if we are under a military junta where things are done by fiat,” the APC statement stressed.

It further explained that for a “serious issue as loan acquisition of this magnitude, the State Executive Council must approve such loan before forwarding to the House of Assembly for deliberation.”

The APC mentioned that the council’s approval must be transmitted to the Plateau assembly for debate and approval, “which cannot be passed as was done at its very first formal sitting as members of the 10th House of Assembly.”

It pointed out that mandatorily, such approvals by the State Executive Council and the state parliament would then be forwarded to the finance ministry and debt management department for further processing.

The APC stated that to the best of its knowledge, there was no state executive council and that the debt advisory committee was not constituted. 

(NAN)