Hope Ikwe, Jos
The governor of Plateau State Simon Lalong said the debt profile of Plateau State has reduced immensely through the prudent use of allocated funds and internally generated revenue.
He disclosed this during his swearing in ceremony and his deputy at the Jos Township Stadium. According to him, ” the hallmark of good governance is financial prudence, fairness, transparency, justice and humanitarian concerns for citizens “.
The governor who said he will unveil the vision and programs of the government for the period of 2019 to 2023 through a town hall meeting on June 12 maintained that the “government embraced the policy of fiscal discipline by keying into the Treasury Single Account to broaden our tax base “.
” The TSA enabled us to monitor revenue and expenditure outflows thereby ensuring prudence, diligence and accountability in all our financial dealings. The creation of the Efficiency Unit ensured blockage of the leakages leading to huge savings over the years “.
Meanwhile the Plateau State domestic debt stands at N100,366,504,576.83 while the external debt stand at $28,874,208.63 as shown by National Bureau for Statistics’ (NBS) data for Internally Generated Revenue for the year 2018.
According to statistics released in May, 2019 , Plateau State’s generated revenue in 2018 stood at N12,726,479,548.41 for IGR and the Net FAAC N43,885,148,418.59 making the total revenue available to the state N56,611,627,967.00.
Lagos, Edo, Kaduna and Croos River with external debt of $1,426,428,935.47 , $276,253,922.96 , $227,252,685.58, and 773,736.81 respectively, topped the list of states with the highest external debts.
Taraba having an external debt profile of $21,611,262.68, Borno, $21,618,240.11, Yobe, $27,486,482.07 , Plateau, $28,874,208.63 and Kogi, $31,584,158.36 are the states with the lowest external debt profile.
