Bauchi State Government is to procure 50 units of JAC Hilux pick up vans fully equipped with modern security gadgets for effective policing of the state.
The disclosure was made by the Commissioner of Finance, Umar Sanda Adamu while briefing newsmen about the outcome of the last State Executive Council (SEC) of the year 2020 held on Thursday at the Banquet Hall of the Government House.
The commissioner disclosed that SEC approved the memo on the procurement of the vans as submitted by his Ministry to the tune of N759m stressing that the aim is to strengthen security measures in the year 2021 as the vans will be distributed to the security agencies in the state.
He said that earlier during the year 2020, the North-East Development Commission (NEDC) donated vehicles to the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, being frontline states and Bauchi, unfortunately, was not included.
He explained that “so the security agencies made requests to the executive governor on the need to provide them with 200 pick-ups with a view to secure the state so that we can sleep with our two eyes closed.”
He added that “the executive governor, having realized the importance of the provision of security and security being one of his cardinal campaign promises, and on the basis of that, suggested that we should move away from the usual practice of buying Toyota Hilux vehicles.”
The commissioner added that, “he decided that we should go for something cheaper considering the paucity of funds and he decided, at the first tranche, to buy 50 Jack Pick-ups at the rate of N15 million per unit.
“He had earlier given approval so that we should procure the vehicles and the Ministry of Finance presented a memo for the ratification for the purchase of the 50 Jack Pick-ups at the rate of N759.5 million on a contract financing basis,” he also stated.
Umar Sanda explained that as of Wednesday, December 30, 2020, the total number of state employees paid was 29,689 while those yet to be paid are 569 pointing out that this was as a result of death, name mismatch while some of them were due for retirement.
He said that those covering the nominal rolls are from 150 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), adding that the issue of salary payment has been effectively tackled.
He assured that henceforth the payment will be without hitches saying that only about 1000 workers at the local government areas are still having issues with the salary payments and that too will be taken care of.
He further assured that the government is not taking the issue of salaries and allowances as well as pension with levity but working assiduously to ensure that civil servants in the state received their entitlements as at when due.
According to him, at the Local Government levels, those paid are 49,553 staff were paid leaving a balance of 1,060 who were not paid because of various infractions.
He said that the ministry had communicated to the concerned LGAs explain to the workers affected on why they haven’t been paid and that they should come out and prove because “some of them were collecting two salaries, some of them were collecting pension and were also on the payroll.”
He also said that for the state pensioners, 9,318 were paid while 136 are still pending because some of them appeared in double pension, some ghost pensioners while 35 of them had various infractions which the goverment is still investigating promising that all those cleared will be immediately paid their salaries and pensions.
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