Kaduna speaker explains why assembly is probing loans under El-Rufai

The Speaker of Kaduna State House of Assembly, Yusuf Liman, on Tuesday, gave reasons why the House is probing the loans collected by the administration of the immediate past governor of the state, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.

Liman gave the explanation after the House set up a 13-man committee on fact-finding of financial dealings, loans and grants, and other project implementations from 2015-2023 under El-Rufai’s tenure.According to the Speaker, the matter would be properly looked into and they would give everyone the liberty to speak the truth

He said: “We just want to analyze the last administration’s spendings so that we can stand with our shoulders high by the time we finish from the assembly, we do not want anyone to call us rubber stamp legislators, we are not going to do this investigation to ridicule anybody, but we will do the right thing.”

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It will be recalled that Governor Uba Sani, had said that his administration inherited a huge debt burden of $587 million, N85 billion, and 115 contractual liabilities from his predecessor.

Governor Sani lamented that due to the rise in the exchange rate, the state is now paying back almost triple of what was borrowed by the previous administration.

He explained that the huge debt burden was eating deep into the state’s federal allocation, adding that N7bn out of the N10bn federal allocation for the state in March was deducted to service the state’s debt.

The governor further lamented that the state was left with N3bn, an amount he said was not enough to pay salaries, as the state’s monthly salary bill stood at N5.2 billion.

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