The current administration of Alhaji Yahaya Bello was inaugurated on the 27th of January 2016 and less than one month of its inauguration, it embarked on Screening and Verification of the actual numbers of civil servants and their wage bill. An exercise that lasted for not less than 14 months, culminated in various crisis ranging from non-payment of salaries of civil servants and pensioners in Kogi State, Including the local government workers.
Despite the colossal amount ranging into Billions of Naira from statutory allocation, Bailout and Paris Club refund received by the current administration including but not limited to Local government funds meant for the administration of the Local councils, the state has continuously been in perpetual crisis due to lack of payment of workers and pensioners as at when due.
More worrisome and alarming, on Friday 5th January 2018, at the Presidential villa Abuja, the Governor pronounced to the whole world while briefing the media that he had offset all salaries arrears to end of December 2017. And he further stated that he went ahead to borrow 10Billion Naira in addition to the November/December statutory allocation from federation account as reported in the media.
The first question here is that has the State collected its share of the statutory allocation for December 2017 as at the time of this pronouncement? The answer is NO!
Furthermore, the biggest issue here is the N10b claimed to have been borrowed to offset the salaries of Kogi Workers.
Who approved the said N10b and when?
Can a state Government obtain a loan of N10b without the Approval of the State Assembly?
From which bank or institution did the said loan come from?
As a civil society organization working in the Kogi State House of Assembly in the last 9 years, that has participated in the various public hearings, organized seminars and workshops for the Assembly, initiated bills that had been passed by the Assembly, I never witnessed when such Loan requests where read on the floor, debated and approved by the relevant committees.
We challenge the Kogi State House of Assembly to respond to this fundamental issue. Or could the Assembly had approve in secrecy without the knowledge of the people of Kogi State who sent them there?
– Idris Miliki Abdul
Executive Director,
Centre Human Rights and Conflict Resolution.
