From: Ahmed Abubakar, Dutse

Governor Alhaji Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa State has confirmed wide speculations that the state government has deposited about N19 billion funds in a fixed deposit account with one of the banks in the state.

Earlier, the governor was accused of diverting up to N19 billion money carried forward from 2016 ‎to the current year.

He was also accused of misappropriating the entire monies disbursed to the state‎ by the Federal Government comprising of bailout funds and the Paris Club fund.

Governor Badaru gave the true position of things on the fund during a function of Roni-Gada Road commissioning ‎when he stated that, “They are accusing us of deposing monies into a fixed deposit account because they are not pleased we didn’t place the money into banks that would assist them in embezzling the funds”.

He said, “We placed the money in safe hands and‎ from that interest we were able to generate N1.6 billion in 20 months from the fixed deposit account which we used in paying the sum of N700 million scholarship for our students.”

“From the same savings we are also able to pay local governments salaries from‎‎ January last year till date of which before then we found it extremely difficult to do so”, he said.

Governor Badaru also said his administration would not repeat the mistakes of his predecessor in extravagant misused of public treasury.

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He castigated the last Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leadership for lacking the foresights and knowledge to save against the economic downturn in the country.‎

Governor Badaru assured that his administration would not repeat the mistakes of his predecessor where public funds were extravagantly misused when the state was in economic affluence.

He said, public treasury is a sacred trust that can’t be tempered or be misused‎, adding that, “Without judiciously managing public money, jigawa could have fall among the states that were unable to pay workers salary and pensions to retirees”, Said Badaru.‎

This frugality that was embarked upon by the administration of governor Badaru has further exposed his government to criticism, that he is a capitalist who doesn’t believe in the welfare of the common man.

The 49 kilometers access road projects in Roni was awarded by the previous administration, they pays only 15 per cent of the money despite state affluent in that time, now this administration completed the project with complete payment of 85% which stood up at over N5billions put together.

Badaru maintained that without frugality state would not be able to finance over one thousand kilometers roads  both inherited and newly awarded,  which are all ongoing projects.

“The recurrent expenditures of the state keep rising while the monthly allocation dwindled in previous months without the cutting down the cost of governance the states would not be able to pays even senior secondary schools examination dues and students scholarship which stood at over N1 billions,” Badaru explained.