Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has disclosed that the state is broke and that payment of workers’ salaries will now be more difficult than ever.
According to him, the monthly servicing of the bailout fund has further compounded the situation.
“The monthly wage bill of the state is N4.2 billion which is far higher than what we receive from federal allocation including the internally generated revenue which means that the state government has always been operating on a deficit. As at December 31, 2015 the state received N1.9 billion from the Federal Government while the monthly wage bill of the state for the same period was N4.2 billion.”
“We cannot continue to patch a cracked wall as if all is well, we need to break it down in order to rebuild it, and the current wage bill of the state is beyond our capacity. Imo State now receives the least allocation among the South-East states because of the monthly repayment of the bailout fund which the state took from the Federal Government, a situation which has further compounded the financial situation of the state.”
He however insisted that in spite of the financial dilemma of the state, no worker is being owed any salary. (The Sun)
