Benue Workers Sack Assembly over Bailout Payment 28 Oct 2015

Benue Workers Sack Assembly over Bailout Payment

28 Oct 2015

28 Oct 2015

George Okoh in Makurdi

Benue State workers yesterday protested the non-payment of their salaries from the bailout fund collected by the state government as they drove away members of the state House of Assembly and their consultant who were out to the 23 local government areas of the state for staff verification exercise.

But the Speaker of the assembly, Mr. Terkimbi Ikyange, described the act as ignorance on the part of the workers, adding that they would soon come back to the assembly and request for the exercise after they must have realised the overwhelming merits of its necessity.

Reports from about 15 local government areas including Ushongo, Otukpo, Vandeikya, Gboko, Ogbadibo among others, indicated that while in other places, workers were not seen at the venues designated for the exercise, they were organised and visibly hostile.

Though efforts to get the state Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Chairman, Godwin Anya, proved unsuccessful as he could neither answer his calls nor reply a text message sent to him in that regard. A member of his executive confided in THISDAY that though the state chairman had compromised and was willing to push the workers into the exercise, they, within the executive, had all agreed to boycott it.

He said: “Other states have paid the bailout as soon as it arrived without any form of screening. The N28 billion was based on the figure we were owed in line with the state’s workforce which was submitted to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“Yesterday, some workers in Benue State, include former political appointees, threatened to drag the state government before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over suspected fraud in the handling of the N28 billion bailout funds granted the state by the federal government.”

Some of the workers, who spoke under anonymity, complained of government attitude in handling the payment of the funds to the beneficiaries.
Another source revealed that the bailout fund had since been granted the state government but, however, disclosed that the state government in turn lodged the fund into two commercial banks in Makurdi with the aim of generating interest.

According to a former aide of the past governor of the state and who is being owned furniture and severance allowances, Mr. Paul Terhemen, the action of the state government appeared fraudulent and must be checked.

He said the government got the N28 billion loan package after submitting a request that included the payment of outstanding pension and severance owned workers but wondered why after collecting the loan the government is trying to exclude them from benefiting.

He said: “We reject in its totality what the state government is doing and we call on the EFCC to investigate the action of the government.”

They also condemned the verification exercise of the workers by the state government which has delayed the payment of the loans, adding that such exercise should have been carried out even before the application for the loan.