Fayose challenges Fayemi to stop blame game and pay workers’ salaries

Ekiti State’s former governor, Ayodele Fayose has described his successor, Kayode Fayemi, as one who speaks from both sides of his mouth.

He also told the incumbent Governor Fayemi to stop ranting about what he (Fayose) did or did not do and pay the state workers their salaries with the N30 billion Ekiti Government got from the Federal Government as refund on federal roads construction, arrears of Budget Support and Paris Club refund.

Fayose stated this in a statement his media aide, Lere Olayinka released on Monday.

The statement was in response to Fayemi’s alleged claim that the government of Fayose received over N18 billion as Paris Club Refund but squandered it.

But in the statement the governor’s aide said instead of Fayemi’s “weak attempt at deceiving the people as usual, the governor should rather explain to Ekiti people, especially the workers why he (Fayemi) prompted the Federal Government to withhold N2.1 billion arrears of Budget Support and N14.1 billion Paris Club refund, which was approved for payment to the state in June this year.

Olayinka, who asked Fayemi to stop “jumping up and down, lying against his predecessor,” argued that Fayose was not able to pay workers’ salary arrears of four months due to Federal Government refusal to release the over N30 billion on Budget Support and Paris Club refund to the past government.

“It was on the basis of the N2.1 billion arrears of Budget Support and N14.1 billion Paris Club refund already approved for payment in June that Fayose promised to clear the salary
arrears. But due to his bitter politics, Fayemi blocked the payment and more than one month after receiving the payment, he is still following his usual path of deceit instead of paying the workers,” he said.

He challenged Fayemi to make the records of disbursement of the Paris Club Refund received by the State public, saying there were conditions laid down by the Federal Government before the fund was released and states were made to make reports of utilization of first tranche of the refund before the second tranche was released.

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“Besides, the fund was meant for both the state and local governments and it is on record that Ekiti fell into the hardship of inability to pay salaries regularly as a result of debt incurred during Fayemi’s first tenure and the loans restructuring done at the instance of the Federal Government and the Federal Economic Council.

“If Fayemi had not plunged Ekiti into unnecessary debt, over N1
billion wouldn’t have been deducted monthly from the State’s federal allocation. And if the APC government had not crippled the country’s economy, allocation to Ekiti State wouldn’t have reduced to less than N1 billion at some point,” he said.

He described Fayemi as a “double-mouthed personality who should not be accorded any honour by sane minds, saying; “The reality is that Fayemi is reputed for speaking from both sides of his mouth. In the past, he described Fayose as an honourable person whose word is always his bond and today, he goes about denigrating the same Fayose.”

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