In order not to worsen the already high debt profile of the state, the state government says it will not borrow money from any Commercial Bank to fund its capital projects. It would rather raise bonds from the capital market for capital projects which at maturity would pay off the bond from the profit made from the projects.
The Commissioner for Finance Prof Uche Uwaleke stated this when he received a three-man Imo State House of Assembly Committee on Finance led by its Chairman, Hon Solomon Anukam who paid him a courtesy call in his office.
Prof Uwaleke said Government was looking in the direction of using the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to fund its recurrent expenditure thereby releasing its FAAC allocations and other capital receipts to execute capital projects.
The Commissioner revealed that his Ministry would in the next two weeks set up an Efficiency unit to work in close collaboration with the procurement and financial intelligence unit of Government to detect and cut any over-bloated expenditure and also promote value for money, using minimum input to get maximum output.
The Finance Commissioner further revealed that the state has adopted the Fiscal responsibility law whereby any Government expenditure must have to be captured in the budget in order to promote fiscal discipline, transparency credibility and accountability in line with international best practices.
In his speech earlier, the House Committee Chairman on Finance, Hon Anukam said they came to interface with the Executive arm of Government in order to identify its priorities and appropriate such in the 2020 budget.
He thanked Governor Ihedioha for identifying and appointing Technocrats into sensitive government positions and expressed the hope that the Finance Commissioner would soon get the Finance of the state back on track. Other members of the House Committee included, Hon Johnson Duru representing Ideato South State Constituency, Hon Paschal Okoli representing Orlu.
Also present at the courtesy call were the Senior Special Adviser to the Governor on Revenue Mr Kelechi-Omeni Nzewihe, the Permanent Secretary, Mr Moses Chikezie and Management Staff of the Ministry.
