By LEKE ADESERI, South West Regional Editor

OSOGBO–The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Government in Osun State, which over time has made it a past time to criticise the immediate past government of Olagunsoye Oyinlola over borrowing may have quietly adopted the strategy when it declared at the weekend that it was planning to access a N60 billion bond loan for the execution of some capital projects across the state.

It will be recalled that Governor Rauf Aregbesola at a forum had said Oyinlola was committing  the future of Osun State to debt so much that the coming generation would find it difficult to wriggle out of the logjam.

But his Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Sunday Akere, disclosed to journalists in Osogbo that the executive would soon forward a bill to be known as “Bond and Fiscal Responsibility Bill” in respect of the facility to the state legislature for consideration and approval.

He explained that the bill when approved and signed into law, would authorise the state government to raise the long term loan at cheap and fixed interest rates throughout the period of the loan.

He said: “The loan, which will be collected in two tranches of N30 billion each, will attract interest rate of between 14 and 14.5% payable in seven years.”

Akere said the need for the loan became imperative because the State Executive Council, SEC, had noted that the state government was in “dire need of funds to execute some projects”.

He however expressed optimism that the facility would ensure successful execution of capital projects for the development of the state in consonance with the Six-Point Integral Action Plan of the state government.

ACN before the latest move declared that it was “stunned at the fiscal indiscipline, recklessness and unabashed resort to borrowing by the administration of retired Brigadier-General Olagunsoye Oyinlola in the twilight of his tenure.”

It specifically accused Oyinlola’s government of reportedly borrowing N0.7 billion from a commercial bank in Osogbo, the state capital.

According to the party’s Head, Media & Publicity then, Gbenga Fayemiwo, “the PDP government, pushed to the wall and clearly losing the initiatives on what next to do to halt the decline to insolvency by his administration, we have learnt reliably that Governor Oyinlola had to urgently borrow the sum of N700 million a few days ago to settle the outstanding commitments on mounting costs on his regime’s bloated overheads and sundry expenses.

“The latest borrowing was done when the repayment scheme on the N18.3 billion reckless loan secured against public outcry from a commercial bank entered repayment. The bank had already begun deducting the repayments at source from the state’s monthly allocation from the Federation Account thereby leaving behind a paltry sum that is inadequate to service the state’s bloated and self-serving overhead costs.”

“Financial recklessness, as witnessed in Osun State, is the blight of any administration to the extent that it halts the development of such society and commits its future to uncertainty and overhang.”