By Amos Aar
THE Benue State House of Assembly on Tuesday constituted a 3-member ad-hoc committee to investigate income and expenditures of the twenty-three (23) local government areas of the state.
Speaker of the Assembly, Hon. Aondona Dajoh, announced the constitution of the committee shortly after he read a correspondence from Governor Hyacinth Alia, dated 14th June, 2023, entitled, “Forwarding of report of the 23 Local Government Chairmen of Benue from February to April, 2023″.
Chief of Staff to Governor Alia, Hon. Paul Biam, signed the letter on behalf of his principal while the ad hoc committee was directed by the House to investigate and report back to the House within the shortest time possible.
The correspondence partly reads: “Following the receipt of the report of income and expenditures of the chairmen of the 23 local government councils…submitted themselves on the 14th of June, 2023, I hereby forward the above report to you for investigation and necessary recommendations”.
The ad hoc committee is headed by member representing Katsina-Ala West constituency, Mr Peter Ipusu, with Mr Manger Manger of Tarka and Mr Cyril Ekong of Oju II constituency as members.
A top government functionary in Alia’s administration confided in National Record on Tuesday evening that although the governor had assured the local government chairmen a week ago that he was not going to remove them, he saw a need to unseat the chairmen following a hint he got that former Governor Samuel Ortom held a meeting with the chairmen one night against Alia few days ago.
He said the investigation to be carried out is aimed at getting justifiable reasons to remove the council chairmen who were elected under Ortom’s administration in 2022.
All the 23 LG chairmen being investigated are PDP members believed to have been installed by the former governor, and therefore considered as Ortom’s loyalists.
