Governor Accuses Ortom Of Massive Looting Of Benue Government House
Governor Hyancith Alia of Benue state reportedly accuses his predecessor, Samuel Ortom of massive looting of the government house in Markurdi.
He alleged that Ortom left office with all the vehicles and trucks in the government office, including his official cars.
The governor, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Tersoo Kula, in a statement issued on Thursday, also said Ortom administration left behind, an empty treasury.
According to the governor, other inherited liabilities, included N187.56 billion debt, unpaid salaries from December 2022 till may 2023;
five months salaries arrears of state government’s workers in 2017, as well as, ten months salaries of local government workers in 2017.
The governor who also accused Ortom administration of not paying pensions since 2021, described the looting as the highest in the history of the state.
Governor Alia according to the statement by Mr. Kula said that his decision to sweep away all last-minute appointments made by the former governor remains irreversible.
Read Also:
13 Suspected Cultists Arrested In Ogun
“The PDP is not ignorant of the fact that all the appointments and recruitments that were carried out by former governor Samuel Ortom at the twilight of his administration were not done in good faith.
“Is it not curious that for more than seven years, Ortom could not employ indigents of the state into the civil service, until a few months to the expiration of his tenure?
“It is even more ironic that the PDP, which is now a crying wolf, left the government house owing salaries of Benue Civil Servants from December 2022 to May 2023. The same PDP administration left salary arrears of five months for state government workers in 2017; 10 months for local government workers in the same year, 2017. Under this same PDP government, pensions were last paid in the year 2021.
Governor Alia urged the party to apologise to the people of the state to seek forgiveness and stop playing to the gallery to mock the badly deprived people of the state.
He also advised the people not to lose any sleep over the actions he has so far taken as he was out to sanitise the rotten system created by the outgone administration in the state.
