The governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, has cried out in horror as he accuses 'ghosts' of sabotaging his efforts.
Samuel Ortom
Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has declared that dead workers
and some others who are supposed to have retired are still collecting
salaries in his state, thereby frustrating his efforts.
He said the development had greatly increased the state’s wage bill
to N7.9bn monthly, which he said was too much for his government to
handle.
Ortom said this in an interview with State House correspondents
shortly after attending a meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja
during the weekend.
The governor said although he was committed to timely payment of
workers’ salary, this could not be achieved with the unsustainable wage
bill.
He expressed the hope that a verification exercise, which will last three months, would bring sanity to the system.
Ortom said, “You will recall that I declared a state of
emergency on payment of salaries, and I want to have the capacity to
pay salaries as and when due because a worker deserves his wages.
“We discovered that there were so many leakages on our payroll and ghost workers and other infiltration here and there.
“I think that a wage bill of over N3.2bn is too much at the
state level. And when you add pensions and gratuity, you are talking of
about N4.2bn. It is too much for Benue State.
“At the local government, you have a wage bill of N3.7bn. So,
if you are talking about N7.9bn for a state, it is not decent enough.
“Ghost workers, those who were due for retirement are still in
the service, those who are dead are still collecting salaries and all
that.
“So, we believe that at the end of the day, we will be able to
scale down to a level that we will be able to pay salaries as and when
due.”
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