Cephas Iorhemen 
The Benue State Chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday called on Governor Hyacinth Alia to use what it called the slush funds at his disposal to clear salaries and pensions arrears as he had promised during the 2023 campaigns.
The party said it is aware that the Governor “who is still running a government without a cabinet has received into the state’s treasury tens of billions of naira from the monthly federal statutory allocation as well from stamp duty and debt swap accruals”.
The party in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Bemgba Iortyom said “Those are accruals which the immediate past administration of Samuel Ortom did fulfill all due diligence requirements for accessing, with offsetting of workers salaries and pensions arrears earmarked as priority expenditure from same”.
“PDP investigations gather that Governor Alia late last night (Sunday) eventually bowed to pressure from the party to pay workers their wages as he had promised to do without fail on the 25th of every month, and directed that one month salary be paid to workers, but so far only those in a few of the ministries have received credit alerts from government”.
It recalled that the governor had promised to clear salary arrears owed workers and the understanding was reached that he will pay four months at a go with himself assuring that would be done on the 25th of this month of June.
The party urged Governor Alia to maintain the same expenditure priority with those funds as was envisaged by his predecessor who worked to secure them by keeping true to the understanding of paying four months arrears to workers in June.
It observed that with the volume of funds currently at the disposal of the present administration in the state, the Governor will have no reason for not keeping to this understanding in the interest of the state and her people, particularly the workers.
