AN OPEN LETTER TO GOV. ORTOM

Sir, recently, you were interviewed by the Sun Newspapers and the interview was published on September 24, 2017. I took my time to read the entire interview with the aim of knowing why you are still owing workers for several months and what exactly are you doing to ensure the payment of all the outstanding salaries and allowances of the workers. You admitted that you owed arrears of six months at the state level and nine months at the local government level because you inherited N69 billion arrears of salary, pension and gratuity from your predecessor, Mr. Gabriel Suswam. Also, you claimed to have inherited a wage bill of N8.2 billion and that has contributed to your inability to pay the salaries and allowances of the workers as expected. Sir, I am not surprised that you can justify your failure because politicians can always give excuses for their incapability. However, I don’t know why you are always blaming the past administration for your inability to do the needful and move the state forward. One of the qualities of a leader is creativity. You came in and saw a bad situation, you should have quickly thought creatively and do something urgently to prevent the escalation of the situation. Don’t forget that you are left with less than two years to complete your four years tenure but all you do is to blame the past administration and tell people how you inherited billions of naira and, how you have been working hard for the people of Benue State and how grateful the people are. Yet, the same people are complaining bitterly.

Nevertheless, in the interview, regarding the issue of diversion of relief materials and misappropriation of funds for flood victims by some officials of your government, you were asked to explain and state how much has been spent from the state’s pocket. You said, “I think around N50 billion currently”. That’s another problem. You have never been specific for once whenever you are to state or mention the exact amount you have spent on a particular issue. Why? I listened to you when journalists asked you about the bailout funds. They wanted to know how much you received from the federal government as bailout. You told them around N28 billion. Also, after receiving the first Paris Club Refunds from the federal government, you were asked again in order to know how much it is and you did the same thing. The latest and second Paris Club Refunds, released to you as usual and you did as usual, thinking it is around this or that amount.

Pius Terwase Awunah, Mpape, Abuja