NAN
Commissioner for Finance of Gombe State, Alhaji Hassan Muhammadu said, on Monday, that there was no need to press the panic button concerning the state’s economy, which he described as robust and sustainable.
Muhammadu, who gave this assurance while speaking with newsmen in Gombe, said there was nothing to panic about despite the meagre Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state.
According to him, the financial prudence of the state government has made the state viable, as it has not been listed among the 27 states that cannot pay their workers’ salaries.
The commissioner said the debt position of the state was available to members of the public, and that the bonds accessed for infrastructure development were also being serviced.
“Our IGR is not as huge as those of Lagos, Kano and Ogun, but the economy of the state is efficiently being managed by our Governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo.
“Our economy is very robust, sustainable and there is no cause for alarm.
“The financial prudence of the state government as well as the economic team is the major tool for the economic success of our state. We have been able to block all leakages,” said Muhammadu.
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He said the state was not listed among the 27 states that could not pay salaries as the state government had made payment of salaries a priority.
He explained that the N30 billion bond raised by this government had been used for the development of infrastructure across the state, which could easily be verified.
“We first raised N20 billion out of the N30 billion and also at the beginning of 2015, we raised another N5 billion. We still have N5 billion that has not been accessed.
“Our state is functional because we pay workers’ salaries regularly, and we have continued to pay,” he said.