Terver Akase, media aide to former governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, tells JOHN CHARLES how the Fr Hyacinth Alia administration has been engaging in verbal attacks on the ex-governor, among other issues
The Benue State Government through the Commissioner for Finance and Budget Planning claimed that instead of 25 bank accounts presented to it on assumption of office, they later found out that the state under Samuel Ortom ran over 600 bank accounts. How will you react to this?
I don’t know what the present administration is trying to achieve with its sustained media attacks on the former governor. If you agree with me, no week passes without this government manufacturing tales against Chief Ortom. However, what has been lacking in all their outings is verity. None of their allegations against the former governor comes with any driblet of truth and evidence. The claim that the Ortom administration operated 600 bank accounts is as bizarre, outlandish, and misleading as it sounds. They are only playing politics with the serious business of governance.
The present government officials ought to differentiate between Benue State Government accounts and those of others. If you ask the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System to give you accounts in Benue State, they will give you bank accounts bearing Benue’s name, including those owned by cooperatives, student unions, associations, and hospitals, among others.
Was it like that in 2015 when the former governor came into office?
When the Ortom administration decided to implement the Treasury Single Account, the government carried out an NIBSS account search in 2017. The result revealed that there were 810 accounts since the inception of Benue State.
These accounts were for the state and local governments, including government ministries, departments and agencies, hospitals, projects, and other programmes initiated by previous governments. Some of the accounts were dormant, others active but with little or zero balances.
The central accounts of government are domiciled in the Office of the Accountant General. All the accounts run by ministries and agencies of government are operated by civil servants who are answerable to any government in power at the time.
No governor maintains a government account after he leaves office. This is why there is always a change of account signatories when a new government takes over. To put the matter in clear perspective, the Alia administration should disaggregate the 600 bank accounts they claimed the former governor created. By this, I mean they should tell the people who are the holders of the 600 accounts and what is contained in each of the accounts.
There has also been an allegation that the debt profile the former governor left behind was to the tune of N359bn. What is your take on this?
The present government of Benue State is selling a narrative to unsuspecting people of the state that they inherited N359bn as debt from the previous government led by Chief Ortom. This narrative is not only false but is also a deliberate stratagem to snooker the people.
Why did you say so?
Remember that this same government told the people via a statement by Governor Alia’s Chief Press Secretary in June this year that former governor Ortom handed over N187.56bn to them as debt, which was the same amount the former governor mentioned while presenting his handover note to his successor. So, what the present government is saying about the state debts now contradicts their previous statement.
The former governor was explicit in his handover speech that though the debt situation of the state government at the time of his exit from office might appear to be on the high side (N187.56bn), his administration had taken proactive steps to negotiate and ensure significant debt reduction/reliefs leading to Debt Swap Between Benue State and Federal Government as facilitated by the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. The total debt swap for state and local government councils stood at N71.6bn.
The inflows Benue State was expecting at the time Chief Ortom was leaving office were: (a) Backlog of accumulated Stamp Duties – N48bn, (b) Refund from Debt Swap with Federal Government – N22.95bn. Total = N70.95bn. When the negotiated debt swap and the expected inflows are discounted, the state will be set to attain a significant debt reduction, bringing down its debt profile to N45.2bn.
But these are simple projections that may not be feasible. Don’t you think so?
Well, one thing I know is that Chief Ortom took some steps to bring down the debt profile. For instance, the state, by May 29, 2023, had outstanding approvals awaiting disbursement from the Federal Government, including the balance of bailout – N41bn and a N20bn Central Bank of Nigeria facility. At the same time, the Benue State government was expecting N9bn as a refund on withdrawals for subsidy and SURE-P. The Alia administration has yet to tell the people if it has already received the N9bn SURE-P funds.
There are other moves the Ortom administration took to find a lasting solution to the problem of pensions; the state government domesticated the Federal Government reforms in pension administration through the Benue State Pension Law, 2019, which introduced the Contributory Pension Scheme.
Our administration met most of the requirements for the full implementation status of the Contributory Pension Scheme. At the time Governor Ortom was rounding off his stewardship, over N8bn had already been raised under the Scheme, and Benue State was on the threshold of meeting the conditions for benefitting from the Contributory Pension Scheme, including access to long-term loans and bonds for development projects or defraying existing pension liabilities.
What baffles me is that the Alia administration has not disclosed to Benue people how much it has received from Abuja as federal allocations and what they have raised as internal revenue since it came on board. They are also mute on the monthly state wage bill. Since the Federal Government removed oil subsidy, allocations to states have increased enormously. Let the Alia government tell the people what has come to Benue as federal allocation in the last five months.
