04 April 2015, Yenagoa — Bayelsa State government has disclosed that it expended N10.168 billion as bank loan repayments in the months of January and February this year. Governor Seriake Dickson said this during the state’s monthly transparency briefing in Yenagoa.
He said the state government also spent N8.05 billion for payment of the civil servants’ salaries and pensions for the two months. While the bank loan repayment for January stood at N4. 968 billion, the one for February was N5.2 billion.
Also, while the salary and pension payments for civil servants in January gulped N4.015 billion, that of February was N4.035 billion. Dickson, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, John Jonah, said other expenditures included political appointees’ salaries of N404 million for February and N394 million for January.
He also announced that the state received a gross inflow of N10.9 billion from the Federation Accounts Allocation in February and that a total N13.987 billion was available for spending as gross inflow for January.
On FAAC deductions, Dickson explained that bond deductions stood at N1.2 billion, foreign loans N12.9 million, commercial agricultural credit scheme was N66.7 million, fertilizer for 2013 farming season, the 4th out of six installments, amounted to N2.9 million, while refund of arrears of derivation revenue to Akwa Ibom State on the Iro Ekanga Oil field was N132 million, totaling N1.5 billion.
*Igoniko Oduma – Daily Independent