By Ifeizu Joe
Anambra State governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo has described a report by Daily Trust Newspapers that his government plans to borrow N245billion to finance 2024 budget as fake news.
Soludo who was reacting to questions from journalists after a statewide broadcast to mark the 33 anniversary of the creation of the state said close to three years of his being governor, he has not borrowed a dime.
He said: “The news that I want to borrow N245billion to fund the 2024 budget is fake news. I have tried to find out from the rest of my team where that was coming from and to know if there is any such plans that I’m not aware of. So, it is certainly fake news.
“Let’s be clear, and I want to make some points about borrowing. I have a view about borrowing. Every enterprise, be it private, government or whatever that wants to scale up their activities will look at the cost of funds, the opportunity and the time value of those money and it can make sense.
“You can borrow today to provide goods and services and tomorrow the economy will generate enough resources to pay back. So borrowing in itself is not a bad idea. Every prosperous country that ever developed and grown big lived on some form of debt or another. So borrowing is not a negative word, but this administration under my watch, we have a particular view about borrowing and we have very narrow stringent criteria for borrowing. We are not just going to borrow just to finance this or finance that.
“In 2022, the House of Assembly when we had our supplementary budget actually approved for us to borrow N100 billion. To this moment, we haven’t borrowed a kobo out of that. Last year 2023, we had deficit in our budget, about ninety something billion.
“This year, we have a budget deficit of about N121 billion and until this moment we have not borrowed one kobo of that. The reason is that we have been working on projects, on programmes that will be bankable. We are insisting that we borrow for bankable projects, for projects that will create and add value.
“So far we are working on some major infrastructural projects that will generate resource payback. The moment we are ready for that, that is when we will gladly and proudly approach the market to be able to scale up our transformational trajectory.”
The governor said he was moving to his third year in office and has not borrowed any money.
He said: “If you also realize, recently, there was a publication of states receiving N438billion from the world bank, it was a World Bank loan, but Anambra’s name is not on that list. We deliberately opted out of that loan, and someday I will explain why we took the decision to opt out of that loan.
“All I’m trying to say is that we take the issue of borrowing very very seriously, and we are not going to borrow, unless we show you where that money is going to go and what value it will add.
“That report by Daily Trust that Anambra was planning to borrow N245 billion to finance the 2024 budget is nothing short of blatant falsehood and everybody must regard it as such. Even in our budget, the deficit we have is 121, so how can you be planning to borrow 245 when you have a budget deficit of 121. That makes it ridiculous in the first place. I don’t know where they got their source from, but whatever that got it, it is pure fake news,” Soludo said.
Meanwhile, speaking on the 33rd anniversary of the state, Soludo said: “Anambra was created from the old Anambra State on 27 August 1991. I want to felicitate with Anambra people all over the world.
“33 years after, we are on the right path and we are the top five or six most viable economy, and in poverty index, we rank the lowest, and have the largest urban cities with four major cities in the state.
“We rank lowest in out of school children in the country and this is indicative of the laurels we win. In health we are second only to Lagos in low infant mortality rate.”
Soludo said his government will strive to maintain the dreams of the founding fathers of the state
