Benue State Commissioner for Finance and Budget Planning, Michael Oglegba, speaks to JOHN CHARLES about the steps by the government to reposition the state amid a debt of N359bn allegedly left behind by the immediate past administration
At the time Governor Hyacinth Alia assumed office, what was the position of things?
We inherited an empty treasury; it was virtually empty. Allocation for May had come in around May 26 and by May 29 when Governor Hyacinth Alia assumed office, it was an empty state treasury that he met; there was nothing left in the account. So, how we paid workers’ salary in June was another issue for another day.
But the past administration claimed it was handing over N187bn debt. Why are you now talking about N359bn debt?
The level of debt the state owed was the N359bn mentioned by the governor. This was in two categories; the state and local governments. For the state, it was more than N200bn, which included local and foreign debts. However, the local governments also have their debt of unpaid salaries and gratuities as well as local contractors that are more than N150bn.
The Alia-led government has no reason to lie about the debt. We will be doing ourselves a disservice to say we owe money, but we don’t owe. It means that banks can no longer lend us money when we need it. It also means investors will be scared of us. But we want to do things right because we don’t want to misrepresent the facts, and the facts are there that Benue has shot itself in a hole, as the Americans will say.
If you dig yourself in a hole, what do you do? Alia’s arrival is to stop digging; we are no longer borrowing. So, we don’t get deeper into the hole. That is why we have not borrowed money. It’s the same reason you see we don’t have official vehicles. We are not doing those things they have done in the past.
But we are paying salary and gratuities. Now, the state government is improving the welfare of our doctors and all medical personnel. Their hazard allowances will be paid this week. But we are no longer borrowing so that we don’t get deeper into the hole.
The amounts owed are real; they are not manufactured by governor Alia. So, when you call Benue State, it encapsulates the state and local government areas, and that is what we owe.
Have you been able to find out what these loans were procured for?
It leads a lot to be desired how money that was borrowed in the past eight was applied. Some of them have projects attached to them. As it is a normal case of doing business; you will get to find out what the monies were applied for. There are different projects tied to different money that was collected from banks, the Federal Government, and development partners. So, I think we will soon know where the money went and how they were spent.
I think if you create an establishment, and you say you want to pursue money, that is like playing politics. But we don’t want to play politics with the lives of the people; we just want to run the company so that later, if there’s money somewhere, we will find out and trace where the money is. But we want to do what is right and lawful.
At the assumption of office, Governor Alia set up an asset recovery committee. How did it go?
Yes, we moved to recover vehicles that were taken out of the system. The reason is that there is a particular time by law to use a particular asset before you can depreciate it to zero level that can be given out. If you have to do it earlier, there is an amount of money someone should pay that is commensurate with the value of such assets. Once this is breached, then you are in breach of the law, even if it is done with an executive order. So, if there is a breach anywhere, we will try and do what is proper for the sake of the people of Benue State.
There have been conflicting figures of the wage bill of the state. Can you avail Benue people of the state’s wage bill?
Before the present administration, you heard different wage bills being bandied by the past administration which hovered between N7bn and N8bn monthly. When we came in, we set up a team to review the wage bill of the state. Luckily, I was in charge; so, what we did was start with a wage bill for the state Civil Service, State Universal Basic Education Board, local government areas, and Teaching Service Board, and we are at a manageable level now.
It has come down drastically. You heard the governor saying we have saved N1.2bn as of the time he said it. It is an ongoing process; we are not done yet. It is taking many years for Benue State to get to where it is.
When the immediate past government claimed something N7bn to N8bn wage bill and the income was around N6bn. What that meant was that before the allocation came, they had spent and were unable to meet the liability of monthly recurrent expenditure.
It meant there was zero money available for capital projects; that is the implication. So, our first job was to find out if these people on the wage bill were real. Should they be there and how much should they be earning?
Every month, we discover things. Some people draw money from the state coffers and are not staying in the state. Some so-called workers live in Abuja and some even live abroad and never bother to come to the state, but they draw salary from the state. Some of them are well-connected. So, there are different categories of problems. It is a hyper-dreaded problem, but the government is doing everything possible to remove those things from the payroll.
Let me give you one dangerous scenario, go and think about this. In the handover note, they told us that there were 19,000 pupils and 16,000 teachers in our primary schools and the United Nations says the average of a good school is one teacher to 30 pupils. But in Benue, going by their handover note, what we have was one teacher to approximately one pupil; I think that would have been the best. However, the big questions to ask are, where are these teachers? Where are the pupils? Where have they gone? Now, the wage bill is going down.
The government has since frozen its accounts. What may be responsible for this action?
The reason for frozen accounts was to be sure of what was going on. A lot of instruments have been signed by the previous administration and we want to be sure of those accounts before we release them. Some of the accounts have been audited.
People are saying there is no need to freeze government accounts when you can easily change the signatories to the account. The belief outside is that keeping money in an account yields interest and a smart way of making money. Don’t think so?
Government accounts are not interest-yielding accounts, and such belief is wrong. Secondly, when we came in, we asked for the bank accounts of the state to be brought. We were presented with not more than 25 bank accounts. A casual look at the number of accounts presented to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System showed that we had more than 600 accounts.
If you are the governor of a state, and you write to 18 accounts not to pay out, what of the remaining hundreds of accounts? Are you aware of what is going on? Fr Alia has decided in the best interest of the state. It is a temporary measure.
