Edo N99.3 billion debt worries stakeholders

&NewLine;<p>For some Edo State indigenes&comma; the recent debt revelation by the Debt Management Office&comma; DMO&comma; to the effect that Edo State ranks among the first two highest debtors&comma; coming just after Lagos State&comma; has become &&num;8220&semi;a thing of serious concern&&num;8221&semi;<br> AfterLagos with a debt profile of &dollar;1&period;43bn which represents 33&period;81 per cent of the foreign sub-national debt portfolio&comma; Edo State comes second with a foreign debt portfolio of &dollar;276&period;25m representing 6&period;53 per cent of the sub-national foreign debt portfolio&period;<br> In August 2015&comma; shortly after President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office&comma; he had written the Senate&comma; seeking approve for World Bank’s Development Policy Operation loan of &dollar;75 million for Edo State&comma; whichas graciously approved by the lawmakers&period;<br> The &dollar;75 million dollars loan is the second tranche of a &dollar;225 million dollar Development Policy Operation loan approved for the state by the World Bank&period;<br> But Mattew Urhogbide&comma; PDP Edo South&comma; moved against the loan &comma; arguing that there was the need for the Senate to verify some of the claims made by the state government on the usage of the first tranche of the loan&period;<br> &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I am not standing to oppose what has been granted by Mr&period; President or the desire of the state government&period; I am here to look at some of the views expressed by the people on the things that have been done with the first tranche&period;<br> Other highly indebted sub-national governments &lpar;in terms of domestic debts&rpar; include Cross River N167&period;96bn&semi; FCT N164&period;25bn&semi; Ekiti N118&period;01m&semi; Kano N117&period;08bn&semi; Plateau N100&period;37bn and Imo N98&period;78bn&period;<br> Cosmos Osadolor&comma; a renowed economist&comma; laments the rationale behind such huge debt by a State that barely manages to pay salary adding that such huge debt only positively reflects on the extravagant life style of public office holders&period;<br> Edo Concerns Vanguard&comma; a pressure group&comma; advocated for accountability to avoid waste&period; Its President&comma; Abdullahi Usman&comma; at a conference in Lagos said &&num;8220&semi;We were sad that PDP government did not take us far in Edo but that party seems to be a saint in comparison to APC that has not displayed any form of prudent management of scarce resources&period; They are very good at emptying the treasury to fund elections but careless about the citizens&period; This huge debt is a bondage to Edo&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;