The Kano State Government has refuted allegations of borrowing 177 billion Naira from France, stating that the claims are false and malicious. The Director General of the Kano State Debt Management Office, Dr. Hamisu Sadi Ali, made this statement during an interactive session with newsmen in Kano.

“Our attention has been drawn by a malicious publication by the online newspaper, DCL HAUSA, which falsely claimed that the Kano State Government under the leadership of Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf had received the sum of 177 billion Naira as a loan from France,” Dr. Ali stated.

Dr. Ali emphasized that the Kano State Public Debt Management Law 2021 clearly states that the State Debt Management Office shall borrow on behalf of the Government from any individual or institutional bodies, subject to the provision of the act. “Whenever the Government intends to borrow internally or otherwise from individuals or institutions, it has to be through the State’s Public Debt Management Office,” he explained.

He clarified that the loan in question was actually signed by the previous administration led by Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. “Dr. Ganduje’s APC administration signed a subsidiary loan agreement for the Third National Urban Water Sector Reform Project of about 64 million Euros with the French Development Agency in July 2018. Unfortunately, this is the loan that DCL Hausa claimed was contracted during the current administration,” Dr. Ali noted.

Dr. Ali provided a detailed breakdown of the current debt portfolios of Kano State, including foreign loans and domestic loans. He highlighted that no government in the history of Kano State had ever borrowed from domestic lenders, except for the Ganduje administration, which contracted and signed six different loans from various commercial banks.

“As the person in charge of the entire State’s debt portfolios, I can confirm that since the inception of Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf’s NNPP administration on May 29, 2023, no single penny has been signed, contracted, or received by the Kano State Government as a loan,” Dr. Ali reiterated.

He also mentioned that the current administration has made significant efforts to reduce the state’s debt burden. “His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf, has paid external debts of about 3.49 billion Naira and domestic debts of 60.02 billion Naira, totaling 63.51 billion Naira for the first and second quarters of 2024,” Dr. Ali stated.

Dr. Ali appealed to the general public to ignore the fake and politically motivated news from unscrupulous sources like DCL Hausa. “Journalism should be a deeply investigative venture and not a mere non-factual fabricated report,” he concluded.