Benue uncovers factors responsible for N7.8bn monthly wage bill

Benue State Government has assured that it is working hard to address the non-regular payment of workers’ salaries.
Deputy Governor of the state, Benson Abounu, who is also chairman of the screening committee verifying the actual workforce of both the state and local governments, disclosed this at the stakeholders’ meeting held in Government House, Makurdi on Tuesday.

The deputy governor noted that his committee discovered several anomalies that could have been responsible for huge wage bill of the state which he puts at N7.8bn monthly.
Abounu explained that the shift allowance meant for a category of workers on shift duty at the state health management board were being paid.
He said: “Our committee was set up to look at the legitimate earnings of workers both at the state and local governments and several anomalies were found which were contained in our interim report.
“For instance, at the health management board, shift allowance is meant for only those on shift duty but to our chagrin, we discovered that all members of staff of this board were collecting shift allowance.

“So also was undue allowances by members of staff in our tertiary institutions, the staffers collect SIWESS allowance every month.
“At the local government level, when we carried out the screening, many came up with papers which added to 20,976 workforces, the additional figure is 7,746 members of staff and these people were recruited with no approval.”