From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
The All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate in Kaduna state, Malam Nasir El-Rufa’i, has expressed fear that his administration would inherit broken economy if voted into power, in February 28 this year.
The former Minister of Federal Capital Territory made this known yesterday during day one of three days interactive session with gubernatorial candidates in the state organized by Organized Private Sector (OPS).
According to El-Rufa’i, going by the present economy status of the country, which is now affecting allocation from Federation Account to the states as a result of drop in crude oil market globally, there was high tendency that about 30 states, including Kaduna, may not be able to pay salaries of their workers.
“We are in trouble in Kaduna state; because the state is the second most indebted in the country, with about N102 billion. This is the second time we will have this crises. It happened in 1983.”, he lamented.
While asked on how he intend to raise money to finance state’s expenditure if elected, he said, it was not necessarily need to increase tax if the allocation from federation account and internally generated revenues were judiciously used.
“If it were to be that APC has been in power in the past seven years when oil was at 100dollar per barrel, we would have achieved a lot of economy improvement because we would have blocked the 40% leakage.
“For instance, projects that have been approved under the ruling party in the state in the past seven years, were well over-inflated as a result of permissive corruption which has eaten deep the fabrics of our economy,” he added.
