Ondo state government on Tuesday dismissed insinuations that it has received bailout fund from the Federal government even as it mentioned that workers in the state will be paid their salary this week.
Speaking with newsmen in Akure, the state's Commissioner for Finance, Yele Ogundipe said government was yet to access the said fund, adding however that, process is ongoing by the state to access the bailout fund.
According to the Commissioner, the federal government had earlier directed that states can only access the fund through commercial banks adding that the state got an offer letter from a Commercial bank on the 3rd of this month.
" We are currently processing the payment and what the federal government has done is to instruct the state to access the funds through the commercial banks. We have approved one of the commercial banks and like most other states have done and they just gave us an offer letter on Thursday, 3rd of September.
"Of course we immediately prepared memo for the state Executive council's approval which came on Monday that we should access the loan at the rate specified by the Central Bank which is a single digit rate of 9 percent"
He said further that government is hopeful that "within the next one week, the N14b will be received" submitting that government is still collating all its papers to be forwarded to the Central bank.
The Commissioner said however that workers in the state will be paid a month salary before the end of this week while the remaining two months arrears would be paid as soon as the bail out fund is accessed.
He said contrary to calls from some quarters that the bailout fund should be used to fund some projects ,including road, the Commissioner said the fund cannot be used for any purpose other than paying salaries of active workers, adding that the condition for accessing the loan does not even allow for pensioners to benefit from the package.
" The fund is for the settlement of outstanding salaries. It is not for any other purpose, it is not even for us to settle outstanding gratuities due pensioners.
"It is strictly for those who are working with the state at the moment. No money can be diverted to any project, infrastructural or whatsoever, it is not allowed" he said.
