Don’t sell Kogi assets, PDP warns Bello

The opposition PDP in Kogi State has cautioned the Governor Yahaya Bello-led government to shelve its plan to sell off some legacy projects/assets built by past administrations in the state to fund its 2018 budget.

Spokesman of the party in the state, Bode Ogunmola, in a statement issued in Lokoja, described the alleged move as “wicked, anti-people and retrogressive.”

“We are shocked that the state Finance Commissioner, Asiru Idris, last week during his budget defence at the State House of Assembly confirmed this and went ahead to list these legacy assets/ projects.

“The projects/assets to be sold include the newly constructed Kogi Hotels, Confluence Stadium, Confluence Beach Hotels, Commissioners’ Quarter, Lokoja International Market, the 12-storey Kogi House in Abuja and Kogi Liaison Offices in Abuja, Kaduna and Lagos, among others.

“We reject this proposal in totality and warn Governor Bello to immediately perish this thought. It is shameful and the peak of rascality that a government which cannot pay salaries of workers, let alone execute projects, will now scheme to mortgage our collective future,” the PDP said.

But the governor in a reaction by his Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Mrs. Petra Onyegbule, defended the plan, saying the PDP was only criticising the move because it lacked vision and ability to move the state forward.

She said the government decided to sell off “non-earning assets” of the state as was done by the Federal Government during the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“The past administration took a bond to set up white elephant projects; projects that could have been assets to the state but because they were so gigantic without proper projection, they became liabilities to us and the state continues to service the debt without making anything from them,” she stated.