Fayose Responsible For Pensioners’ Deaths, Says APC
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has accused Governor Ayodele Fayose of causing hardships in the lives of the state pensioners that led to the deaths of eight of the retired workers in two weeks.
In a statement in Ado-Ekiti by the Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, the party said if the governor had applied the N57b loans he had taken according to the terms of their approvals, pensioners and workers would have received their monthly wages and pensions to enable them take care of their health needs.
Olatunbosun accused Fayose of insincerity in the handling of the state’s finances, arguing that if the governor had been honest with Ekiti people in the running of his administration, all the cash coming to the state in form of federal allocations in the last two years should have been enough to pay workers and pensioners up to date.
He said: “In his last media chat, he, as usual, deceived Ekiti people that the September allocation to the state government was N2,456,000,000, instead of the correct figure of N3.6b while he said the local government allocation was N1,97,000,000, arguing that the total he falsely (N4,431,000,000) was not enough to pay salary whereas the average state workers wage bill is N1.8b while that of local government is about N1.6b totalling N3.4b.”
He also accused Fayose of taking Ekiti people for fools, noting that his usual deceit in asking labour leaders to sit on a committee to share allocations and loans is the height of fraud to deceive the public to paint the picture of transparency in the application of public funds.
He explained: “Ekiti people are no longer deceived by Fayose’s callous conduct in publicly asking a committee composed of his foot soldiers in the Labour movement to share allocations, loans and Paris Club refunds coming to the state whereas he is the sole person sharing this money without anyone asking questions.
“We remember that in the last Paris Club cash sharing, after Fayose publicly announced the cash that went to the local governments, he later coerced the local government chairmen to return their shares to the state government.
“This is the same way he diverted the N20b bailout, monthly N1.3b budget support facility he has collected for 14 months to pay pensions and wages but has so far denied workers and pensioners their entitlements, preferring to illegally diverted the money to white elephant projects awarded to his friends’ companies in which he has interest while no one knows anything about the state’s internally generated revenue.
“Today, workers have become petty thieves stealing pots of soup while in the last two weeks, eight pensioners have died for lack of money to take care of their health.
“Mr J.O Ojo died in Agbado-Ekiti; Alhaji Abdullahi in Ado-Ekiti; Mr Abegunde died in Aisegba because he had no money to buy drugs; Mr Babaniwura lost his life in Iluomoba because he could not afford medical bill to take care of his health; Mrs Aribisala lost the battle for her life because of lack of money while Mr Lawrence Adedayo Ojo, aka Shamor, lost his life to protracted illness in Ijan-Ekiti after he was denied his gratuity and pensions to take care of himself, among many others numerous to mention, while others are still facing life-threatening ailments but the governor takes joy in wickedly and callously diverting pension funds to projects that he and his family are sole beneficiaries.”
Olatunbosun also berated Fayose for allegedly planning to sack 3,500 workers, arguing that it is callous to dismiss more than 28,000 people on Ekiti State payroll inherited from former Governor Kayode Fayemi to be contemplating sacking another 3,500 workers on some flimsy excuses after having not recruited into the civil service in the last three years.
