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By Madu Obi
Anambra State governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo has debunked the report that his government is planning to borrow N245billion to finance 2024 budget.
Speaking during a broadcast to mark the 33rd anniversary of the creation of Anambra State, Soludo said he has not borrowed any money close to the three years he has been in government.
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 when we had our supplementary budget, the House of Assembly 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."
"Also 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 where that money is going to go and what value it will add.
Speaking on the 33rd anniversary of the state, Soludo said Anambra is on the right track.
"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," the governor said.
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