*pleases to continue offsetting Benue salary arrears
Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State has appreciated President Bola Tinubu for including the State in the recent roll out of palliatives and other interventions to cushion the impact of petrol subsidy removal.
Addressing journalists at the weekend after his met with the President at he Aso Rock Villa, the Governor also hailed Tinubu for supporting concerted efforts towards checking the resurgence of insecurity in Benue.
According to Alia, the federal government’s efforts have been helpful, especially given the prevailing challenges of meeting several obligations to the people and tackling the challenge of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) prevalent in the state.
While hoping that the gestures from Abuja continues, he said that they had brought relative peace to Benue, hitherto absent because of political divisions of the people along party lines in the state.
His words: “That has been a very, very helpful. Insecurity in the past was something of trouble. But, we are pleased to know that so much work has been done and relative peace has returned to the state and I will continue to do the work.
“The aim being that we want to get all the IDPs back home to their ancestral homes and ancestral farm lands. Before May 29, It was very impossible for the IDPs to get back to their ancestral places, even to farm this current season they were able to go back and do this.
“However, we still have skirmishes of it. All the other security apparatuses are on it and are helping so much. So, it remains our firm hope and resolution that we’ll get them back to their ancestor homes.
“And we cannot thank the federal government enough for assisting us by all ramifications for us to be able to achieve this.
“We have to thank the President for taking care of the federal roads in the state. All the federal roads that cut across the state were awarded for renovation and I’m happy he took the step in that direction even before I came to plead for further support in that direction.”
On the contentious salary arrears and other debts owed by the immediate past administered in the State, Alia said “since we came in, I know that Benue State on record has the debts of all over N359 billion naira being pensions and gratuities, salaries and arrears as well as the debts ranging from the poor and then the domestics.
“What we’re trying to do is to see how we can renegotiate these and then to get back on a better perspective and then to forge ahead with the development of this state.
“For now we have established the continued payment of salaries each month. If you are a staff of the States or the local government in Benue state, I would have only told you keep watch on your light on the 25th of every month. Your alert must tell you that you have been paid and that has come to stay and that is what we’ve been experiencing in the last four months and we’re serious at it. So, the state is not going to owe anything to anyone.
“Again, to those who are retiring since this 2023, we’ve already made it a point of duty that once you retire it must not take up to four months before you collect your gratuities and your pension. By doing this, gradually we’re going to revisit the backlog of arrears that exists. In fact we’ve started work on that already.
“So, we’re trying to raise the IGR. So, once it is raised any month, then we have something in there, it goes straight to the arrears of pensioners, and then even of salaries.
“You’ll be shocked to hear that some in the local governments were owed for up to five years of salaries, five years! And then the least we recorded are People who were owed up to four months. There was a list and this is why the debts comes up to N359 billion on my head and on the head of Benue state.”
