The Governor of Bayelsa State, Douye Diri, has said expert advice made his administration to collect the discounted N27.5bn infrastructure development refund from the Federal Government in December 2020.

Diri said this during his maiden live media chat held to mark this year’s Democracy Day celebration inside the Government House, Yenagoa, on Saturday.

The governor was debunking the insinuation in some quarters that his administration received N38.4bn as refund for rehabilitating some federal roads in the state.

He said his government settled for the discounted N27.5bn after consulting economic experts who explained the implications of the federal arrangement, which suggested that the state could only access the N38.4bn in the next four years.

According him, the Federal Government had told the benefiting states, including Bayelsa, that it did not have money and that they could only be refunded through the Debt Management Office with promissory notes after four years and the money would be further discounted.

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Diri said, “We (my team) came back and consulted experts and the expert advice was that ‘you people had better go and take the money… the money can go into another four years or voicemail.

“Two, you are not sure of the inflation rate. As of the time the APC-led Federal Government took over in 2015, the exchange rate was about N160 to a dollar. Today, the exchange rate is about N500 to a dollar. So, inflation alone will take up even this discounted figure (N27.5bn) we are talking about. It will still go down in the next four years.”