Katsina State Government said on Wednesday that it has not borrowed any loan since its inception on May 29.
The government is responding to a claim by the Debt Management Office (DMO) which indicated that the state, together with some other states of the federation, collected fresh loans.
In a statement issued in Katsina, the Chief Press Secretary to Gov. Dikko Radda, Mr Ibrahim Kaula-Mohammed, faulted the report.
According to him the Radda-led government has been occupied with repaying subsisting loans secured by previous administrations since it came on board.
“Not a single new loan has been collected by the present All Progressives Congress (APC) government in Katsina.
“This is not to say that the state government will not borrow whenever the need arises. It could borrow to improve the lot of its people.
“At the moment, however, there is no new loan,”he said.
He appreciated the efforts by the media to keep the public informed about government activities.
“We call on the media and the public to continue to support the present administration in its efforts to provide meaningful projects to uplift the living standard of its citizenry,” Kaula-Mohammed said.
Earlier, the Sokoto State government has denied taking any foreign loan to executive developmental projects in the state.
The Press secretary to Sokoto State Governor, Abubakar Bawa stated this in a statement issued on Tuesday.
The statement was in reaction to a BBC Hausa Service report which listed Sokoto State among the Northern States that have taken loans to execute developmental projects.
The government described the report that the state government took foreign loans amounting to $489 million to execute projects across the state as false.
The statement quoted the state governor, Ahmed Sokoto as saying “Let me make it categorically clear that i have never taken any loan from anybody since we came on board.
“I was shocked when i heard my State being listed among the northern States that have collected foreign loan in order to develop their States.
“The BBC report was indeed misleading, and i expect them to verify the information they claimed to have gotten from the Debt Management service before going on air.”
NAN
