The Debt Management Office (DMO) yesterday chided ex-Commissioner for Finance, Budget and Economic Planning Wale Bolorunduro over utterances on Osun State debt profile.
Bolorunduro, who served under the administration of Rauf Aregbesola, had accused the administration of Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of releasing jaundiced figures, in a bid to stain Aregbesola.
He said: “The loan deduction on the first bond of N30billion was N640million monthly. It ceased since July 2019. So, Governor Oyetola must have borne the burden for only nine months. I expect total repayment on this to be about N6billion, the loan deduction on the second bond (N11.4billion) was about N320million monthly and it has stopped since March 2020. So, Governor Oyetola couldn’t have borne it for more than 17 months. So, I expect total to be about N5billion.”
But the DMO Director General, Tunde Adejumo, said in a statement: “The debt portfolio passed by the last administration to the current government in the state is in excess of N200billion.
“Ex-commissioner Bolorunduro must know that public debt portfolio of either a sovereign or sub-national does not refer only to borrowing (which can be either domestic or external), but also includes domestic expenditure arrears. These are government liabilities on financial obligations already dispensed with or services rendered with, whose payments are yet to be made. These include contractors’ arrears, salary arrears, pension and gratuities, judgmental debts, and government-to-government debts.
“The totality of this, added to loan amount, is what is referred to as debt stock. I am indeed shocked that a former finance commissioner will be questioning the rationale (and the applicable accounting standard) for my inclusion of domestic arrears, as part of government’s liability or debt portfolio. If salary arrears, contractors’ arrears, pension and gratuity outstanding are not debt hanging on the state government, how come workers, contractors and pensioners in the state keep agitating for settlement of their arrears?”
He said DMO had since 2020 been publishing comprehensive annual report on the state’s Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) and Debt Management Strategy (DMS) on the state’s official website, adding: “Bolorunduro’s claim is contrary to the agency record.”