N41bn loan approved by state assembly to offset salary, pension arrears ― Ortom

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has said that the N41 billion loan recently approved by the State House of Assembly is to clear the salary and pension arrears of workers.

The Special Adviser to the governor on Media and Publicity, Terver Akase stated this in a statement issued and made available to newsmen in Makurdi on Monday.

It will be recalled that Benue State House of Assembly last Friday approved the N41 billion loan facility sought by Governor Ortom which has raised questions by critics on social media.

Some accused that the loan is to be used to prosecute coming general elections and others described him as a serial borrower.

However, Akase in the statement said that the loan will be used to clear arrears on workers’ salaries and pensions.

“Approval of N41 billion loan by Benue State House of Assembly a few days ago was only a re-validation of the application for the pending bailout of N41 billion and not a fresh loan approval.

“Out of the N41 billion, N17 billion will go for payment of the arrears of salaries and pensions at the state level, while N24 billion will go to local governments” the statement read in parts.

Akase said the Ortom administration had applied for a bailout in 2015 which the Federal Government had resolved to give to states to cushion the adverse effects of the recession and enable them to pay the outstanding salaries and pensions.

He added that the State Government then sought the approval of the State House of Assembly and applied for a N69 billion bailout which would have addressed the backlog of the emoluments but regretted that the Federal Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of Nigeria, approved and released only N28 billion of the bailout leaving N41 billion pending.

“Out of the N28 billion that came to the state, N15.5 billion was for the 23 local government areas while N12.5 went to the state for payment of the outstanding emoluments”, the statement further read.

The statement added that while other states were able to later re-validate the 2015 bailout application and were given the balance of the total amount they originally requested it lamented that “Benue State Government despite several efforts to get the N41 billion balance released to it, but such efforts could not yield results as the Federal Government was not forthcoming until recently.”

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