The All Progressives Congress in Ondo State has described the N119 billion 2016 Budget proposal of Governor Olusegun Mimiko as fraudulent.
The party said Mimiko’s budget was designed to mortgage the future of the citizens of the state as the tenure of the present administration winds down.
Mimiko is a member of the Peoples democratic Party.
A statement by the APC’s spokesman in the state, Steve Otaloro, said the decision of Mimiko to use a large chunk of the budget to service debt and not to embark on any capital project this year was wrong.
Otaloro said in the statement issued on Wednesday: “A situation where the government will be spending N15.850 billion, which represent 31.08 per cent of this year’s budget to service debt repayment shows how the PDP government had mortgaged the future of Ondo State.
“This is the result of the unwarranted several loans received by the PDP-led government.
“The allocation of N50 billion for capital projects in this year’s budget estimates, which is planned to be used for the completion of ongoing projects like the Dome, Ondo township roads and the Fiwasaye- Oba-Ile to Airport Roads, is nothing but fraudulent.
“These projects had already received monetary votes in previous budgets without appreciable progress.”
The statement said Mimiko categorically told the state House of Assembly that he would not embark on any project, adding: “When this happens, the already poor standard of living will fall because capital projects are what impact on the standard of living of the people because most plans are dependent on capital releases of government.
“And if there is no execution of capital projects in the state, investors, businesses and people who depend on the allocation for capital project will suffer.
“In the past seven years of this administration, waste, fraud and mismanagement by the PDP-led State government has denied the people value for more than one trillion Naira the state has earned since 2009 with a budget performance rate of about 15 percent in all.”
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