The Bayelsa state House of Assembly led by its Speaker, Abraham Ingobere has said the loan approvals granted Governor Douye Diri administration are legitimate and tied to specific items on project interventions and development.
The state assembly has in the last few months been under criticism over approvals of loan requests from the Governor Douye Diri amounting to an estimated sum of N21billion.
But the leadership of the House through its House its information committee chairman, Hon. Tari Pori (Ekeremor 1), dismissed as “unfounded” the claims of unnecessary loan approvals to the Governor Douye Diri administration, insisting that all loan requests granted the present administration are legitimate and tied to specific items.
Pori, who made this known while rendering account of stewardship of the House leadership at the end of the second session of the year 2020, said the recent approvals were specifically for counterpart funding and intervention projects with institutions such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), SDGs and MDGs. “These approvals are tied to a specific items.
“They are not loans for specific development and infrastructure projects. The loan approvals are to allow the state government access the interventionist funding and by the time the monies are made available, the state would be better for it. They are not monies in the state government account.
“These are counterpart funding meant for intervention development. You cannot access such funds without the state making a commensurable contribution. We want to assure Bayelsa that once the monies are accessed, we will monitor and do our oversight function to ensure it is used for the purpose. We have also approved N3.5 billion as counterpart funding for SUBEB. If all these monies are used for the purpose, it will benefit the people.
“These are why you see some people refer to Bayelsa Assembly as rubber stamp. There is nothing like rubber stamp anywhere. The truth is that if you don’t have the details, you will find it difficult to appreciate what the state Assembly is doing,” he said.
