Oyo governor Abiola Ajimobi, said on Saturday that the federal government bailout payment of N26.6bn to the state would not be enough to pay all outstanding salaries owed to state employees.
Ajimobi, who spoke during a Splash FM programme monitored in Ibadan, said the state government must look for more money from other sources to ensure all outstanding salaries of workers were paid this month.
He added that the FG bailout fund would be accessed this week.
“Next (this) week, we should be able to access the Federal Government bailout of N26.6bn. Local Government workers will get N9.3bn from the sum while the state government workers will get the remaining N17.3bn. As of today, we owe the state workers N21.3bn but all we could get from the bailout is N17.3bn. So if we get the money today, we will still have to look for more money to balance the account so that all the debt can be paid,” the governor said.
Oyo State gets about N3bn in monthly allocations from the federation account and an additional N1.2bn in internally generated revenue (IGR).
Ajimobi said government should shoulder much of the blame for the economic woes facing Nigeria.
In his words, “We should blame the culture of spending without saving, lifestyles of Nigerians, ourselves and government for the position we find ourselves today. We have not managed the economy well but government should take the larger blame. So much money had been stolen.’’