Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State in North Central Nigeria on Sunday formally handed over the affairs of the state to the state Governor-elect, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
In the handover notes contained in three volumes, Governor Ortom put the total income that accrued to the State within the tenure of his administration from all sources including Statutory income, Value Added Tax, Internally Generated Revenue, other FAAC incomes involving Grants, Refunds, and Loans at N734.96 billion as at 30th April 2023.
According to the outgoing Governor, the total expenditure on both recurrent items such as Salary and wages, Pension and Gratuity, Overhead or cost of running government services, loan service obligations, refunds and remittances to Local Government Councils and Capital Expenditure during his 8 years tenure amounted to N735.6 billion as at 30th April 2023.
Ortom however said the debt profile of Benue State Government at the time of the exit of his Administration from office stood at N187.56 billion.
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The figure is inclusive of Salary and Pension Arrears, Loans and Bonds as well as outstanding Contractual obligations, said the Governor.
He explained that he had reached an agreement between the state and the Federal Government on a debt swap for State and Local Governments to the tune of about N71.6 billion.
The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom has formally presented handover notes of his eight years administration to the Governor-elect of the State, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia.
Ortom was elected Governor in 2015 and re-elected for a second term in 2019. pic.twitter.com/DNhzJTzU09
— BenueStateGovernment (@benuestategovt) May 28, 2023
“I wish to assure you that my Administration has taken proactive steps to negotiate and ensure significant debt reduction reliefs between Benue State and Federal Government” he said.
The outgoing Governor noted that Benue State had outstanding approvals awaiting disbursement from the Federal Government including a balance of bailout of N41billion, CBN facilities referred to as DCRR put at N20 billion
He urged the incoming administration to take up the issue of the release of such disbursements for the benefit of the State.
On the issue of pension which has continued to pose a major governance challenge to successive administrations in the state, Governor Ortom recalled that his regime inherited huge pension liabilities when he took over in 2015.
Between 2015 and 2023, he said his administration expended over N2.4 billion on payment of gratuity and N24.4 billion on Pension at the State level.
He explained that factors such as the establishment of several new Secondary and Higher educational institutions as the impetus for development on the advice of the Federal Government and Partners to drive needed Programmes led to significant expansion of the work force thereby increasing pension liabilities of the state.
“This also led to huge increases in the Pension payroll. Also, several new Salary structures were introduced raising the wages of workers, and similarly raising pension which gave rise to the need for my administration to introduce reforms in Pension”.
He said the situation compelled his regime to domesticate the Federal Government Reforms in Pension Administration through the Benue State Pension Law, 2019 which introduced the Contributory Pension Scheme.
“Thus, where Government was the sole financer under the then existing Pension Scheme, both the Government and workers contribute 10 and 8 percent respectively of the total monthly wages of workers which is then saved in the Retirement Saving Accounts of each worker enrolled in the Scheme in four Custodian Banks including UBA, Access Bank, Zenith Bank and First Bank.
Governor Ortom urged the people of the state to cooperate with the incoming administration and continue to pray for peace and development in the state.
Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia who received the handover notes commended the outgoing administration and his incoming team that witnessed the brief ceremony.
N.O
