By our reporter| Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom on Wednesday explained why it had become difficult to pay the salaries of Benue workers.
The state workers are being owed three months’ salaries.
The governor gave three reasons for the development while taking questions from reporters in Markudi, the state capital on Wednesday.
According to him, the rising cost of overheads, the inability of the NNPC to remit money to the federal accural, and the state’s low internally generated revenue (IGR) as a result of insecurity are constraining the state’s ability to pay salaries.
He further explained that it had been difficult to coordinate the state IGR due to the increasing insecurity challenge which had landed nearly two million of the state’s population in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps.
He said, “Even the federal government has been borrowing to pay salaries but states do not have powers to do so except with permission from the Federal Ministry of Finance’s Debt Management Office (DMO). It’s a big challenge because we are facing the economic realities.”
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