Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom spoke with reporters in Markudi, the state capital, on his achievement, the state’s amnesty programme, the bailout controversy and other issues. Correspondent Uja Emmanuel reports.
What are the achievements of your administration in the last six months?
I give glory to the Almighty God for where we are today. When I came in as governor of Benue State, I knew that we had a lot of challenges. The first thing I noticed was that the state was under siege and it was very disturbing. The state was insecure; people were being killed indiscriminately, people were being robbed, people were being kidnapped and I saw it as a very disturbing development. I decided, right from the day of my swearing-in, from 29th of May, that the first thing that I had to do was to secure the state. I thought it wise, after due consultation with the Federal Government, I granted amnesty to all those youths who were having arms illegally. As a politician, I knew what transpired during elections. Our youths were armed to prosecute the election. Fortunately, because of the overwhelming support which I had from the Benue people, they were not able to execute their plans through violence, moreso that I refused to be part of any violent acts against the people of the state. The amnesty program yielded positive results. We succeeded in receiving over 400 different types of sophisticated weapons from these youths, more than 700 than of these youths came together and surrendered to the amnesty. We just held a retreat for them and we are going to encourage them to go back to school while some will go back to vocation training schemes to acquire skills. Some will be incorporated into government security strategy as part of intelligence gathering so that we can secure the state further. We are excited that this has yielded positive result. They gave me their word that they will not go back to their old ways. That was one major achievement. The intention of government to ensure that the state is industrialised, to ensure the introduction of schemes that will promote micro, small, and medium enterprises, in ensuring that we attract investment into the state and to ensure that we encourage trading and commercial activities in the state cannot be realised without adequate security. Having confronted the challenge headlong, today we have been making contacts all over the world and several investors are flowing into the state with the intention of investing.
What are other challenges?
The other challenge was that I met a deficit treasury and it was worrisome because of debts. Well, government is a continuous process. So, we had to take up from there. After due consultations with stakeholders and the House of Assembly, we chose to borrow N10 billion to pay salaries and take on very critical responsibilities that needed urgent attention, that we did. We were able to dialogue with unions at the Benue State University (BSU), that was on strike and they accepted our commitment to them and they resumed and today our students are back to school and several of them have graduated.
The other problem we had, which affected the entire state was the medical students from BSU. Since the inception of the College of Health Science about 12 years ago, they could not graduate due to non- accreditation of the school. This was one issue that we gave attention and brought in the management who put all the challenges together and we took it up and paid all the requirements that were needed to get the accreditation. We invited the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria to come to Benue and the accreditation was done. Today, Benue State University has successfully graduated the first set of medical doctors in Benue, 27 of them. They are already doing their housemanship in BSU Teaching Hospital. There too, we needed to upgrade some facilities which we did and our students are doing their housemanship there in the Teaching Hospital.
We had issues of pension arrears, salary arrears and all that. What we decided to, out of the N10 billion, we started paying arrears form May because we resumed on May 29 and so when we secured this N10 billion we started paying the arrears. Since then, for pensions we have not reneged, we have been paying pensions because most of the pensioners live on drugs. Pension at the state level alone is N394 million. At the local government level, it is N117 million every month. We have been paying because these are our mothers and fathers, we are not toying with them.
The other issue was the school of Nursing and Midwifery in Makurdi. That is one institution whose graduates are working all over the world in Europe, America, Asia,etc. It is the only school that on graduation, appointment letters are waiting for you. We discovered that for the past three years, no administration was done because the accreditation had been withdrawn. When we came in we said we cannot allow this to continue in Benue State and so we swung into action and today if you go there, there is massive construction and renovation going on and we have set aside funds to ensure that we provide the equipment that are needed and as soon as the renovation is finished, we are going to invite the Council to come and re-accreditate the school and then our children will take off again.
A lot of fraudulent activities were perpetrated by certain political leaders and civil servants. The payment is being coordinated because we have introduced a new system of payment, it’s e-payment. This will eliminate the issue of ghost workers and stop some of the indiscriminate recruitments that were making the salary wage bill to be very high. At the local government level today, teachers and other staff have a salary bill of N3.5 billion. At the state level when you put pensions, when you put overheads, when you put together salaries, salary is about N3 billion today, pension N394 million with overhead put together is over N4 billion. Last month which is October, the total money that we got at the local government level was N2 billion with a deficit of over N1.5 billion. At the state level, total monies that we got was also N2 billion and so we had a deficit of N2 billion.
But these are issues that we are discussing, we are transparent, nothing is hidden about us. I have said that the issue of bailout at the local government level is still having some outstanding and so it requires some clarification. We have set up a committee headed by the deputy governor and they are receiving complaints and dealing with them as they come. One thing is that I have seen several insinuations and blackmail from the opposition who are still dreaming that we are not transparent and that money have been moved here and there. No single kobo has been diverted. We promised the people that we will have zero tolerance for corruption and as far as we are concerned, all the resources meant for bailout are available and people can cross-check their facts. I have said that if you see that I am doing anything to short-change the state or any person working under me, blow the wistle. It is not their right to accuse people that they have diverted N3 billion, that they have diverted so many millions and so on. Bring those facts, we are ready to deal with anybody under this government including myself. If you have facts and figures, bring them out so that we can appreciate what you are saying.
The issue of fighting corruption should not be limited to government circles alone. It should be total, the whole society should be involved. When you notice anything, it is your duty to bring it out, but bring facts and figures. If not people can go to court against you for telling lies. So we are very transparent and accountable. We still believe that anyone who is sincere to adding value to the development of the state should be frank and should work hard to support this government.
We have also constituted the Benue State Internal Revenue Service board because this is one area that we need to look inwards. Today the oil prices have fallen, before we came in oil was sold for about $140, today it’s sold for $38, so it means we must look inwards and looking inwards is internally generated revenue. I have constituted the board. Very soon, we will come out with revenue blueprint that will help them.
My government has zero tolerance for corruption. We are fighting hard and one other thing that I must mention is the setting up of the two panels. One, a judicial panel to verify the income and expenditure from 2007 to 2015. This is a fact finding panel, it is meant to give us a picture of what transpired. As at today, we are still verifying certain debts that the state is owing.
When we came in initially, we were given figures by the Ministry of Finance that we had a debt burden including salary arrears, pensions and gratuities and contractual obligations and so on to the tune of N90 billion. We set up a transition committee that was supposed to collaborate with the past government but the government later withdrew and so when we came in we told them to go ahead and verify some of these facts. They came up with a figure of over a N130 billion of commitments. Then arrears of gratuities and pensions put together amounted to N169 billion. Up to today, we are still verifying because people are still bringing up some government commitments and so on. This panel is meant to bring out facts because as Christians, we do not intend to witchhunt or blacklist anyone. So the panel is meant for people to go there and exonerate themselves but when you have issues you have to go there and respond to them and if possible apologise to the people of the state and make restitution. We are willing to forgive like we granted amnesty. Where you took government money wrongly, you must bring it back, there is no doubt about that. For people who say we have skeletons in our cupboard, don’t just say that, bring facts and figures. We are ready to face the people of Benue State who gave us their mandate popularly. We did not get it through the barrel of the gun or through intimidation and we are not intimidating anyone. Issues that concern me as a person I’ve forgiven all who worked against me; those who wanted to stop me, those who did all sorts of things against me I’ve forgiven them. But when it comes to the commonwealth of the people, I’m not willing to compromise.
I want our people to know this because at the end of the day, once I get facts from these panels because it’s giving opportunity to those mentioned to come and clarify issues. Once I get this report, it is then that I can go to EFCC, ICPC or I can initiate independent prosecution against those who have taken government money.
The second panel is about verification of government assets. There are several government assets in Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna and even in Benue Sate and there are no records. We felt that government should have records of its own assets and that is why we constituted that panel and they are working. The former governor took us to court to stop these from operation but the court said we were right by setting up those panels and so their work is going on and I’m satisfied with what they’re doing. As soon as the reports are ready, I’ll show Benue people that this is where we are. We can decide on what to do next. I want to appreciate God for these six months, I know that the challenges are there.
Are you saying the Benue State government has no hand in the recent arraignment of the former governor by the EFCC ?
We have no hand in it. It’s very clear, he is being prosecuted for the N3.1 or N3.2 billion that was paid into a private account of a private Bureau De Change businessman who converted it to $15 million and gave him. We have not taken on any person, whatsoever, in the past government until we have the report of the judicial panel that we have set to verify these facts, because we do not want to witchhunt anyone or blackmail anyone for whatsoever reason, so we want facts. That is why I’m insisting that those whose names have been mentioned should try and clarify this matter at the judicial panel because whatsoever they give us at the end of the day, those facts will be there and if we ask you to make refunds and you do not, we can now prosecute you.
There are rumours that the bailout funds have pension money inside. Can you clarify that?
This was a clear way of the opposition trying to distract government because the records are there. In the presentation that we gave to the Federal Government, initially it was the entire debt profile outside contractual agreements and projects. We presented a total request of N69 billion which comprised pensions, gratuities and also salary arrears for both state and local governments but the Federal government now said they had some limitations, so they granted N12.5 billion for the state to pay salary arrears and they granted N15.5 billion for local governments. When I say local government I’m talking of the teachers and other local government staff. That is what we have. There were no pension arrears that was on this but initially the detractors of this government went to say that we have collected the pension money. The pensioners also came and I took time to explain to them and they were satisfied. They prayed that God should bless me but that I should take their message to the President which I did and the President promised that he will look at it because he is a pensioner like them. He said he will look at their plight, he appreciated them and this is what we are working on and I’m sure if there is a way we will work that out.
