Amid controversy over allegations of borrowing, Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo has denied ever borrowing the sum of N245bn to fund the 2024 budget of the state, as has been alleged in some quarters.
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Governor Soludo further disclosed that he couldn’t borrow the sum of N245bn when he is running a deficit of N121bn for the 2024 appropriation.
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“The report about Anambra planning to borrow the sum of N245bn to fund the year 2024 budget is fake news and I didn’t know where they got that story from,” he said.
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“Let’s make it clear that I have a view about borrowing and every enterprise, private or public or whatever that wants to scale up activities must look at the funds, look at the options, look at the opportunities and cost of those funds and time value of money.
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“It might make sense to borrow today to provide goods and services and tomorrow the economy will generate resources to pay back.Â
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“Let’s be clear, this administration under my watch has a particular view about borrowing and we have very stringent views for borrowing.
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“In 2022, the State House of Assembly, when we had a supplementary budget actually approved for us to borrow N100B and till this moment we have not borrowed a Kobo out of that.
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“Last year 2023, we had an implicit N90B deficit in our budget – about N90bn deficit – but we did not even borrow a Kobo out of that and this year, we have a deficit of about N121bn and till this moment, we have not borrowed one Kobo of that.
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“The reason is simple, we have been working on projects and Programmes that will be bankable. We are insisting that we borrow for bankable projects and for projects that will have the probability and possibility of generating the returns to pay back the debt.”
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Soludo also recalled that recently there was a publication about States receiving N438 billion from the World Bank and Anambra State was not on the list because the state deliberately opted out of that loan.
