The new Governor of Benue State, Rev Father Hyacinth Alia has accused the immediate past administration led by Chief Samuel Ortom of looting the government house in Makurdi.
Alia claimed he met no single official car or truck to operate with as they were all carted away.
Governor Alia revealed that he inherited an empty treasury and a huge debt profile of over one hundred and eighty-seven billion naira (N187.56b) accompanied by accumulated months of unpaid salaries and entitlements of civil servants and pensioners in the state.
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He said:
“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.
“The PDP looted Government House to a point that the new government under governor Hyacinth Alia, met no single car or truck in government house. The governor’s visits to agencies and parastatals have uncovered the highest level of rot ever witnessed in the history of Benue State.
“The same party that left an empty treasury in the state and ripped off the economic system of the people is now claiming to be standing on high moral grounds to offer untenable and ill-motivated criticisms to undermine the collective wisdom of the Benue populace.
“The level of decay caused by the immediate past administration stinks in the severely vandalized offices of state civil servants, such that the new government must have to start from scratch to acquire the necessary equipment for the system to start working again.”
In response to the calls by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state that he should reverse his decision to nullify all last-minute appointments made by his predecessor, Alia urged the party to seek forgiveness from the people of the state and stop playing to the gallery.
The Governor further advised the people of Benue State not to lose any sleep over the actions he has taken so far, as he was determined to sanitize the rotten system created by the previous administration in the state.
