Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has lamented the poor condition he met the state upon assumption of office last year.
Disclosing this on Thursday, the governor said the state was left in a very bad shape by his predecessor, Okezie Ikpeazu, adding that he was not complaining, but rather dealing with it.
The Governor led this out during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, yesterday.
He said: “Absolutely, very, very bad shape, but I am not complaining. I have folded my sleeves and I am just dealing with what I met here.”
“My worry is not really about debt, it is about what the debt is used for.
“If you inherited a debt profile of N34.4 billion by May 29, 2015 and eight years later you ran that debt to about N192.2 billion; I really can’t see anything that you have done with the money, salaries were not being paid, pensioners were being owed, infrastructure was decaying, the place go into ruins, schools were run down completely, hospitals were dilapidated.
“So, the issue is where did the money go? If I am going to take debt, it is going to go into regenerative expenditure. But when you are taking loans and you are running the state into debt, just for consumption, you are not investing in the state; you are not paying salaries; that’s actually what I was talking about.”
