Benue bloated wage bill: Suswam, Ortom trade words

The erstwhile governor of Benue State, Dr Gabriel Suswam  and incumbent governor, Samuel Ortom have traded words over the bloated wage bill leading to non regular payment of monthly salaries.

Suswam threw the first banter on Friday at the SEVAV Foundation graduation ceremony when he attacked his successor of falsifying the wage bill submitting that the state wage bill he left behind was N2.7 billion monthly and described the claim of N7.8billion by Ortom as ‘ridiculous’.

Suswam said that in calculating  wage bill, one does not need to combine state and local government as well as overhead and pension allowances as monthly wage bill.

But in a swift reaction, Governor Ortom who spoke through his Media Adviser, Tahav Argezua  said that his administration had been very transparent and hinted that every monthly expenditure were calculated  to make up the monthly wage bill of N7.8 billion.

The former governor said, ‘as at the time i left office the state wage bill was N2.7 billion monthly and i also have document of what the present government paid from June to September, 2015 which s not different from what i paid’.

“I handed over 19,000 workforce and wage bill of N2.7 billion, so when i heard of N7.8 billion i see it as ridiculous, i asked myself is it a combination of local government and state, you can not pup overhead as salaries.”

Governor Ortom who hit back at his predecessor  said that  Suswam was only envious of his success especially the anti open grazing law enacted by his administration which has received accolade nationwide.

Ortom insisted  that his administration is working assiduously to put smiles on the people of the state  and not giving excuses, maintaining that under this administration, insecurity in the State has been reduced through the amnesty programme which employed the carrot and stick approaches, adding that a lot of weapons were seized during the exercise and destroyed openly in government house according to the UN instructions.

Governor Ortom  lambasted Suswam for employing a lot of people at the twilight of his administration and left without paying them, adding that he collected over 450 million as arrears for overheads two(2) day to the end of his administration.

“I read  that he said he will publish the documents about the wage bill so let him do that, let him bring them he does not have the monopoly of documents. We are waiting for the documents.  People in custody of the documents are still in office. Suswam is  prosecuted for being a kleptomania and sleaze”,  Ortom fired back.