‘Benue will continue to owe salaries’ Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State

The Benue State government has said that it would continue to owe workers salary in the face of dwindling allocation, but will ensure infrastructural development for the benefit of the people.

The state Commissioner for Finance, David Olofu, said this in Makurdi while fielding questions from newsmen during his ministry’s briefing on the recently approved 2016 budget.

“There are no shortcuts to development, we must build infrastructure for development to thrive and to attract investors. Government will continue to categorise payment of workers salaries which commenced in March until we are able to clear it,” he said.

Olofu said the state executive council will consider the establishment of Benue Collective Vision Fund so as not to go looking for money each time the state allocation falls below expectation.

He also said that among measures already taken to finance the budget, the government would make sure that those who are to pay taxes do so in order to shore up its Internally Generated Revenue.

Our correspondent reports that the Ministry of Works would gulp the lion share of N20.8billion. The breakdown also showed that the sum of N66.5billion is set aside for recurrent expenditure while the Government House administration has an allocation of N1.7 billion and the Benue State Independent Electoral Commission gets N1.7 billion.

Others are the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources which gets N6.2billion, Ministry of Water Resources with N6billion, Ministry of Education has N5.6billion and the least allocation of N6.2 million goes to Bureau of Research and Policy Analysis.

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