The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, chapter in Benue State has chastised the state governor, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia, for paying workers only one month’s salary.
In his Democracy Day speech, the governor urged state civil servants to be on the lookout for alerts beginning June 25.
Alia said this while lamenting the people’s plight as a result of the unpaid salaries and pensions he inherited from the previous administration led by Chief Samuel Ortom.
However, some workers were disappointed on Sunday when the state government began paying only one month’s salary.
Reacting, PDP, in a statement issued by the State Publicity Secretary, Bemgba Iortyom, said despite receiving “tens of billions of naira from the monthly federal statutory allocation”, the governor was unable to pay salaries across all ministries.
“Our great party is aware that Governor Alia, who is still running a government without a cabinet, has received into the state’s treasury tens of billions of naira from the monthly federal statutory allocation as well from stamp duty and debt swap accruals.
“PDP investigations gather that Governor Alia late last night eventually bowed to pressure from the party to pay workers their wages as he had promised to do without fail on 25th of every month, and directed that one month salary be paid to workers, but so far only those in a few of the ministries have received credit alerts from government”, the statement added.