By Amos Aar
CIVIL servants and pensioners in Benue State are groaning from the hardship as a result of the non-payment of several months of salaries and pension by the state government.
State and local government workers who spoke to National Record say the state government paid only September 2022 salaries a few days before Christmas, a situation they described as insufficient to overcome the huge burden created by several months of unpaid wages.
A staff of Konshisha Local Government who pleaded anonymity for fear of persecution said although he received a month’s salary in December, he was still being owed 13 months’ salary arrears from 2020 and 2021. The source said the 13 months arrears have compelled state and local government employees to survive on borrowing making it impossible for the state’s workers to enjoy any relief from the measly one-month pay shortly before Christmas.
“The burden of the debt and the huge interests that have accumulated on loans most of us obtained to survive and to pay school fees and other family responsibilities are far greater than the entire backlog of our arrears,” said our source, adding that while majority of civil servants in the state have lost honour and integrity in the eyes of the public, pensioners are dying in droves as a result of the excruciating hardship arising from the non-payment of pensions.
A staff of Makurdi Local Government, while corroborating his Konshisha counterpart and under anonymity, said: “The governor did not pay us for more than a year and when he started paying, he failed to pay two months arrears out of 2020 arrears, while he did not pay a dime throughout 2021.”
A civil servant with the Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Makurdi, who also did not want his identity disclosed, told National Record last Saturday that state civil servants received September salary in December, 2022 while October and November salaries were still being owed as at press time.
In a phone interview with this reporter, a pensioner, while lamenting his hardship occasioned by non-payment said out of the 35 months’ pension arrears owed them at the state level, only one month’s pension (of January 2020) was paid to them in December 2022.
The pensioner, who was seeming sobbing as he narrated his ordeal, said all pensioners he knew used the miserable amount to partly settle the debts they owed leaving them with nothing to celebrate Christmas and New Year.
“We could not buy anything with the one-month payment because we were owing a lot of people so we had to pay some of the debts to be able to borrow from them again next time,” the senior citizen said.
Corroborating, chairman, Aggrieved Pensioners in Benue State, Mr Alex Akosu Orban, said only January 2020 Pension was paid them last December which, according to him, was very “insignificant, inconsequential and a drop in the ocean without perceptible impact on the financial predicament of the pensioners.”
Orban who recalled that Governor Ortom had appealed to Benue pensioners to rescind their peaceful protest on 14th December, 2022 with a promise to pay them at least six months’ pension arrears also described the one-month payment as a “tip of the iceberg and a tokenism.”
Commenting on alleged claim by Ortom that the over thirty-month pension arrears being complained of were inherited by him from his predecessor, Gabriel Suswam, Orban refuted Governor Ortom as he gave a breakdown of the arrears owed by both the Ortom and Suswam administrations.
According to him, Ortom inherited only six months pension arrears from Suswam in 2015 out of which he paid 3 months.
“As I speak with you, they are owing us three months pension arrears inherited from Suswam in 2015. Ortom paid one month in 2020 and carried over 11 months arrears to 2021. Throughout 2021 and 2022, nothing was paid,” Akosu intimated.
National Record tried severally via phone calls last Saturday to hear from Barr Kenneth Achabo, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, why local government staff were still being owed over a year’s salaries despite the N2 billion recently approved by the Benue State House of Assembly to enable the “State Government to meet some statutory local government needs” as stated in Governor Ortom’s correspondence to the assembly, but Achabo’s mobile line was unreachable.
However, Hon. Mike Uba, the Chairman of Guma Local Government, who is also the Chairman, Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), told National Record in a phone interview that the N2 billion recently approved for local governments in Benue State was not for payment of salaries and pensions but for other needs which he did not disclose.
Uba, who said he was not in the position to speak on the salary issue, however, said: “When government borrows, there are certain issues that warrant the borrowing. Government has been borrowing N1 billion to make up for payment of teachers’ salaries and if it borrows N2 billion, it’s for a particular purpose. I don’t think it’s for payment of arrears of salaries.”
The ALGON chairman further stated that the Benue State House of Assembly also approved the sum of about N37 billion recently to be borrowed by the state government and when accessed, it will be used for payment of the arrears of salaries and pension.
Asked whether the state government had accessed the sum of N20 billion overdraft recently approved by the Assembly, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Hon. Frank Usaa Adi, stated that the money was yet to be released.
