By Nicholas Dechi
THE BENUE State House of Assembly has ordered Mrs Grace Adagba, Chairman, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), to refund the sum of N2.1 billion to the coffers of the Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs.
The decision follows a report of the house ad hoc committee which investigated the activities of the caretaker committees of the 23 local government areas of the state.
The Majority Leader, Mr Saater Tiseer, chairman of the ad hoc committee, said that the expected refund of N2.1 billion by the SUBEB chairman was the balance of the funds received from the bureau between December 2023 and June 2024.
Tiseer said that the bureau received on behalf of the 23 local governments a total sum of N66.8 billion from September 2023 to May 2024.
“Out of this amount, N12 billion was released to the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), N3.98 billion to the Primary Health Care Board, and N107 million was released to the Local Government Service Commission (LGSC) as a one per cent training fund.
“Also, the sum of N3.9 billion went to the State Emergency Management Agency (BSEMA),” Tiseer said.
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The majority leader reiterated that the amount SUBEB received was for salaries of primary school teachers between December 2023 and June 2024.
He, however, noted that the board only spent N9.97 billion as a monthly salary of primary school teachers for the period under review, leaving a balance of N2.1 billion that had not been accounted for.
Tiseer stated that local government council officials were compelled to sign blank papers with which officials of the bureau withdrew huge sums of money from the local governments’ accounts.
The majority leader further noted that the bureau mandated security secretaries to pay N9 million from the supposed N10 million security vote for each local government back to the bureau through a designated account.
“This amounted to N1.7 billion from October 2023 to June 2024 for the 22 local government councils visited.
“Most of the local government councils failed to submit salary pay vouchers (PVs) requested by the ad hoc committee. The few PVs submitted were doctored with evidence of multiple payments.
“Also, most of the local government councils visited had very low revenue profiles, and the little amount generated was not banked as required by extant laws,” he added.
Mr Douglas Akya (APC/Makurdi South) said that the report had exposed the rot that bedevilled the local governments.
Mr Elias Audu (APC/Gwer East) urged the house to write to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the rot in the local government system in Benue.
The speaker, Mr Hyacinth Dajo, said that the State and Local Government Joint Accounts Allocation Committee should be scrapped to allow local government councils to receive allocations directly into their accounts. Dajo said that doing so would enable them to deliver quality services to the rural people.
The speaker further ordered the former Special Adviser to the governor on the Bureau for Local Government to refund the sum of N1.7 billion within one month with proof of payment to the house.
The sum, he said, was the withdrawal from the total sum of N9 million approved for security votes of 22 local government councils from October 2023 to June 2024 for nine months.
He also warned local government councils against refusal to disclose official information to the house, stressing that failure to supply official information to the house would attract sanctions henceforth.
Dajo further charged the councils to harness the revenue potentials in their respective areas in order to complement the monthly allocations for effective service delivery to the people. (NAN)
