The immediate past Minister of Interior, Comrade Patrick Abba Moro has warned Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State not to apply the latest tranche of the Paris Club refund for any other purpose.
The Federal Government earlier in the week released a state-by-state breakdown of another tranche of the Paris Club refund amounting to N243.8 billion where Benue State got N6.8 billion.
Moro, a top member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said the Ortom-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government in Benue State, cannot continue to misapply the bailout funds and Paris Club refunds released to the state for the payment of the backlog of salaries and allowances of workers.
The ex-Minister on Thursday in Abuja noted that the non-payment of workers’ salaries have inflicted severe pain and suffering on civil servants in the state as they could no longer afford to cater for their immediate needs.
His words: “I would honestly advise Governor Ortom this time around to prudently and judiciously apply this latest tranche of the Paris refund that has been released to Benue State.
”By the records of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the N6.8 billion to Benue state must be strictly applied for the payment of salaries and allowances of workers of Benue State.
”I insist that Benue state is a purely agrarian state, a purely civil service state. And the concomitance of the non-payment of salaries and allowances to public servants like I keep saying is that children of public servants cannot go to school.
”It means that public servants cannot pay their health bills and those of their children and family members. And like I said before and I want to repeat, it means that common ailments can kill any one of them because they cannot afford the bills for hospitals.
”So, I think that it is in the interest of the APC-led government of Benue State that this latest tranche of the refund is applied strictly for the payments of salaries and allowances of workers in Benue State and Local Government workers.
”This is about the third tranche of bailout now that Benue State is receiving. Previously various excuses have been advanced as to why salaries are not paid.”
The PDP Chieftain also wondered why Ortom was threatening to sack workers as if that was going to solve the problem of non-payment of salaries.
“It is unfortunate that the Benue State government having declared a state of emergency on salaries is still threatening to sack workers. Definitely, that is not going to be a solution to the problem of non-payment of salaries.
”Threatening to sack university lecturers, professors, PhD holders, lecturers of various categories definitely cannot solve the problem of non-payment of salaries because the allowances and salaries that people are complaining about are already earned.
”And so if you sack them you must pay them. So, you cannot run away from that. And besides you don’t pick professors of university from the street. They are not there.
”PhD holders in the university certainly are not employees that you pick from the street. So, it is my hope that the governor and government of Benue State will have a rethink in their threat to sack such unique segment of the public service in Benue State.
”But I think that what is important here is that as the President has consistently advised all bailout funds should be applied to the payment of salaries of workers in all the states. There is no excuse for not doing that,” he stated.
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