A Civil Society Organisation promoting fiscal duty in Niger Delta, Policy Alert has prompted the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) to investigate serial loans acquired by the Akwa Ibom State federal government without following due process.

The organisation on Thursday in a declaration by its Programme Officer, Faith Paulinus, kept in mind that the loans acquired by the state federal government in succession breached the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 and the Akwa Ibom State Fiscal Responsibility Law 2020.

The group stated the call ended up being essential following the State Assembly’s most current approval to the demand by guv Udom Emmanuel to obtain a loan of N150 Billion from the money market.

The group implicated both the executive and the legislature arm of federal government of collusion to impose an unsustainable debt burden on the state.

The group included that governor Emmanuel failed to honour the legal provisions of the federal and state financial responsibility laws which allows state governments planning to borrow to evaluate to the public through the legislature how the loan will be liquidated and would not put the state into an unsustainable financial obligation scenario.

According to the statement, “the Fiscal Responsibility Commission must release an investigation into the loan approval procedures of Akwa Ibom federal government.

“We discover the acquiescence of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly on the recent loan requests highly frustrating and consider it a generational betrayal.”

The group revealed apprehension that the latest loan demand which came a few weeks after the governor revealed his succession plan was a testament to the suspicion
that the funds might end up being used to prosecute the guv’s 2023 political program.

The organisation also decried the state government’s spending on interest payments for these loans, noting that the sudden spike in interest payments for 2021 indicates an abnormality.

The declaration likewise decried the high financial obligation profile of the state government in 2021 as published by Debt Management Office, Abuja on September 30, 2021, which showed that the State’s domestic debt stock stood at N234.85 billion stressing that, it could portend disaster for fiscal area and advancement potential customers of the state in the future.