By Amos Aar
THE TECHNICAL Adviser (TA) to Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State on Media, Publicity and Strategic Communication, Mr Solomon Iorpev, has explained that the casual staff working at Government House, Makurdi have not been paid their monthly stipends because overhead has not been released to ministries for the past 3-4 months.
Casual workers at the Government House have gone unpaid since August and have cried out to Governor Alia for intervention as they are being ravaged by hunger.
Reacting to National Record’s report on Saturday on the outcry of the casual workers, Iorpev told our correspondent on phone that the non-payment of the overhead was occasioned by a garnishee order on the state government’s accounts.
“The challenge has been that government accounts through which salaries of casual staff come, for now, have such challenges because of garnishee.
Asked why the government did not explore other ways to pay the casual staff since substantive civil servants have been receiving their salaries steadily, the TA said account for the payment of civil servants was not affected, adding that it was not possible to use funds from other sources to pay casual staff.
“What I want to tell you is that everything you see in government has account so that it can be accountable and there will be procedures to be followed. For instance, funds scheduled for Ministry of Agriculture cannot be given to people at the Ministry of Finance. How can you account for it? What possible explanation can you give? Iorpev asked.
He disclosed that most of the garnishee cases started during the time when George Akume was governor of the state through Suswam to through Ortom.
According to Iorpev, the state government’s accounts through which casual staff are paid have been affected for the past 3 to 4 months.
“No ministry has received overhead for those 3-4 months that I am telling you about. So, that makes payment for them difficult.
“Now, the reason why civil servants can get their salaries is because their account is not affected by any account within the state,” he further explained.
However, Punch reports that a court sitting in Abuja, on Monday, unfroze N1.9bn out of N3.6bn “from garnished orders two weeks ago”.
