Politics

FG has released withheld Ekiti state allocation – Fayose

Published

19 February 2017

10:39 PM

Olawale Adeniyi

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Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, on Saturday said the Federal Government has released the withheld January Budget Support Fund to the state.

The governor, who did not give details of the efforts he made to secure the release, however, thanked the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, for her efforts.

Speaking on a live programme tagged, ‘Meet Your Governor’ aired on the state owned Ekiti Television and Radio Stations, Fayose promised that workers would get their salaries as soon as the money got to the state account.

Fayose had at a press briefing in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday raised the alarm that the Federal Government withdrew the money after initially paying the money.

He said the government did this in order to set the workers against his government and discredit him ahead of the 2018 Governorship Election in the state.

On Wednesday, he stormed the Ministry of Finance in Abuja to ask why Ekiti was excluded from the list of the 35 states benefiting from the scheme.

In a reaction, the ministry stated that Ekiti did not meet the requirements and conditions for the Budget Support Fund.

But responding to a question on Saturday, Fayose said, “What is important now is that the money has been released. I won’t want to go into details.

“On Thursday, a letter was sent to the Central Bank of Nigeria that the money be released and it has not been released because the CBN Governor was not in town.