Benue Bailout Fallout: A Test Of Ortom’s Commitment To His People
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By Solomon Ayado
Benue State government is among the
various states of the federation that could
not pay workers salaries for months, a
precarious situation that was inherited by
the present administration both at the
center and state. A whooping N28 billion
was then advanced to the state to offset the
backlog of salaries and arrears. SOLOMON
AYADO takes a look at what has become of
the disbursement after the loan was
accessed.
The Benue State government got the state’s
share of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s
bailout scheme for financially handicap
states across the country to enable them
offset the over six months backlog of
salaries owned workers. This development
was greeted with unprecedented joy and
excitement across the length of breath of the
state, but, the disbursement process, which
is the most critical to the suffering civil
servants both at the state and local
government levels have turned their joy into
agony and disbelief and, elicited the
question as to whether the government is
paying lip-service or genuinely interested in
alleviating the sufferings of the people.
The introduction of the e-payment and staff
auditing which, initially was designed to
ensure accountability in line with the
change mantra of the present administration
of the All Progressives Congress, APC at all
levels without the exception of Governor
Samuel Ortom of Benue State has so far
presented a contrary stance. It further
depicts a perceived paltering outing or a
choke of stumbling blocks by counter
developers who are deliberately evolving
sordid plots to undermine the disbursement
process and cast the change government in
bad light.
The wrangling emanating from the handling
of the e-payment system by the awardees’
contractor attests much to the fact that
there were underground plans to defraud the
long-owed workers. The wide spread
allegations of under payment, illegitimate
transfer and payment of funds, outright
unnecessary deductions and very high
degrees of inconsistencies heralded the
payment and disbursement processes.
It is important to note that prior to the
commencement of the process, there was an
open display of expletives from the unpaid
workers over the screening and verification
of staff. Many workers, who have been
employed and had provided services for the
state government over decades, were
suddenly found and declared as ghost
workers.
This is notwithstanding the fact that the civil
service is bedeviled with a varied
underground shade of ghost worker system
which, it was gathered, the fictitious staff
only exist on the payment vouchers. And as
such, the fake names are being used to
derive additional funds for settlement of
packages for political bigwig and their
godfathers.
The internal untidy exercise to fish out ghost
workers has become a contemporaneous
decimal for previous and succeeding
administrations to thrive. Such funds
accrued from the illegal deals are succinctly
utilized by the government officials to
brazen their personal aggrandized wealth,
at the expense of the poverty stricken
masses.
It is pertinent to state that Benue state was
allegedly seen by many to be left in
shambles and that the economy was thrown
into total deficit by the administration of
former Governor Gabriel Suswam, therefore,
it is argued that for any successive
administration to bring development to bear,
such must dive into a borrowing spree in
order to foster economic sustainability.
This widely held notion, is what the change
administration of Ortom had announced the
people of Benue on assumption of office that
“the state treasury was not just left empty
but in total deficit.” It was further
discovered in the local government and
primary schools that some alleged looted
funds that are being probed are yet to be
recovered.
To ensure the fair distribution of bailout
funds to clear owed salaries, the state
governor constituted a committee that was
headed by the special adviser on local
government and chieftancy affairs, Mr Titus
Zam to achieve a 100 per cent
disbursement. But the bureau failed in the
discharge of its duties and compounded the
problems for the state.
However, while the contractor handling the
e-payment system was found to have been
employed by the immediate past
administration of Suswam to conduct the
process and it failed woefully, the state
workers protested and said they cannot
subject themselves to hardship and had
expressed fears that ridding on the platform
provided by his predecessor to achieve
accountability through the engagement of
the same contractor hired by former
Governor Suswam would be a tall order for
the incumbent governor, Samuel Ortom .
Another critical issue that came to the fore
was whether or not the screening of workers
was necessary at the time the staff were not
paid salaries for several months, because
they insisted that the non payment of their
legitimate dues had led to deaths and
school-drop-out of their family members.
Others argued that a staff verification and
screening was not initially conducted by the
state government before it had applied for
the bailout funds, therefore another round of
the similar exercise after the bailout was
secured was simply taking them for a ride.
There were lots of questions and
government was left with no better option
than to halt the e-payment to douse the
concerns that were raised over the process
of disbursement, especially with regards to
the payment of local government staff and
primary school teachers.
Disturbed by the worrisome posers on the
bailout funds, the Benue State House of
Assembly had expressed dissatisfaction
over the disbursement of the N28.5 billion
by summoning Ortom’s aides including the
special adviser on local government and the
commissioner of finance to appear before it
and offer valid explanations over the
inadequacies.
Although the ineptitude of the assembly, led
by the speaker, Honourable Terkimbi
Ikyange was at its peak , therefore the
unsatisfactory explaining offered by the
state government officials saddled with the
responsibility of disbursements ended up
another shame and clearly shoddy. The
toothless Assembly tried a suggestion that
all those entitled to the funds be paid since
they were captured before the funds were
released hit the brick wall as an adamant
Special Adviser on local government, Zam
blatantly refused to heed to this position of
the lawmakers , insisting that such
indulgence would encourage fraud in the
Civil Service.
Conversely, the assuming positive image of
the entire administration of Governor Ortom
was being dragged to the mud if the
disbursement of the bailout funds was not
quickly intervened. The people especial civil
servants were sick and tired of the change
government which they fondly regarded as
“go slow” and negatively impacting.
The governor waded and ordered the
immediate suspension of the e- payment.
He explained that the suspension became
necessary in view of the challenges being
encountered in the course of the
disbursement of the funds to local
government workers and primary school
teachers. In the mix of the controversies, the
local government adviser had allegedly
threatened to resign should he be stripped
of the responsibility of handling of the
disbursement of funds, that again was not
just laughable , but goes further to raise the
issues of accountability and self cover ups,
otherwise why would a Special Adviser
threaten to quit, if asked to allow another
component of the same government handle
a responsibility that is not constitutionally
the responsibility of Zam and his Local
Government and Chieftaincy Affairs purview.
However, Governor Ortom and State
Executive Council, apparently noticed the
inadequacies and constituted a new
committee headed by the Special Adviser on
Labour and Employment, Patricia Kupchi to
speed up the process and ensure 100
percent completion of the payment, as soon
as possible. Other members include the
Special advisers on Special Duties, Joe
Kyaagba, politics, Sarwuan Tarnongu, Rural
Development and Cooperatives, Tsenongo
Abancha, Research and Statistics, Adzer
Abya; Development Cooperation and
Sustainable Development Goals, and New
Partnership for Africa’s Development, Dr
Magdalyne Dura; as well as Economic
Development, Bem Melladu.
It directed the committee to liaise with
Directors General Services and
Administration, Treasurers, and Education
Secretaries in the 23 local government
areas to collate names of those who have
not been paid and others who have
complaints for immediate action.
