Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed at the weekend said the state needs a N300 billion for the execution of capital projects.

He said this informed his administration's decision to approach the capital market to raise N23 billion.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has criticised the move, saying it was a way to impoverish the people.

Ahmed spoke in Ilorin in his monthly radio and television programme dubbed "Governor Explain", adding that the monthly allocation from the Federation Account could only cater for the state's recurrent expenditure.

He said any government desirous of making life meaningful for its people would have to borrow to carry out capital projects.

His words: "As I have always said, infrastructure is something that we have not been doing in the past and this has resulted in the decay which we have recorded.

"What I mean by the past is 20 to 30 years ago; we have been building roads, constructing bridges, culverts but we have not been maintaining them.

"In the process, we find out that they get spoilt and you have to start all over again.

"When I look at infrastructural requirements that the state needs, I found out that there is a huge gap and to put those things in place, it would cost us about N300billion.

"And given the way things are, we know that we cannot raise N300billion but as a government that has a life span, we must see how much of the fund we can raise.

"And where are the sources of funding? Of course, we know that we get the monthly Federal Allocation from where we pay salaries and carry out other recurrent expenditure.

"Is it enough for us to carry out capital project? Obviously it is not. It means that we have to look at other sources of fund that will enable us do our own portion and then we expect that successive governments will continue from where we stopped.

"For us the capital market is the cheapest source of fund for government. Those who don't know will exhibit ignorance by saying that government is going to borrow money to execute projects.

"How do you want to execute projects without borrowing? I don't know how, even the Federal Government as it is today use its Treasury Bill.

"It is a cheaper source of funding because the interest rates are lower than when you borrow from commercial banks.

"I have heard a few people saying Kwara is taking a bond to impoverish the people. You demonstrate ignorance if you say that taking up a bond to execute well-articulated capital projects is impoverishing the state.

"You have simply shown that you have no business in the business of governance."