From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi
Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State has urged civil servants in the state to disregard the campaigns of calumny by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) against his government.
The governor who gave this advice yesterday in Adikpo, Kwande local government during the commissioning of a renovated office of the local government education authority, told them to continue to have faith in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and vote for the party massively at next month general election.
Suswam noted that the campaigns of the opposition alleging that he is unable to pay workers’ salary is completely false and misleading, explaining vividly that it is due to economic downturn caused by the oil glut.
He added that the allocation from the federation account has continued to deplete, maintaining that the N3.5 billion the state received from FAAC for January is grossly inadequate to even pay salaries of workers.
“I need to source for over N200 million to pay salaries of local government workers which gulps more than N4.1billion”, he lamented.
The governor said the situation is not only peculiar to the state, intimating that over 22 states of the federation are owing workers’ salary. He however, promised to offset all salary arrears owed workers in the state especially teachers, adding “where am unable to do so, Tarzoor who is an economist would do so since government is a continuum. I also inherited the June/July huge salary debt from my predecessor and cleared all of it”.
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