Lucky Obukohwo, Reporting
The Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in Plateau State, Hon. Ephraim Usman, has opened the old book of debt on the administration of Simon Bako Lalong, saying that he left a staggering debt profile of N4.6 billion at the local government level for Caleb Mutfwang, the current governor of the state.
Usman stated this during the Ministerial briefing put together by the Ministry of Information and Communication for all ministries, departments and agencies to give their scorecards under the Mutfwang’s administration in the last 10 to 11 months.
He said the inherited amount covers primary school teachers salaries and pension for local government staff who have suffered from total neglect and denial of their entitlements in the hands of the last administration.
“So far, N1.7 billion naira primary teachers arrears have been cleared. N1.2 billion naira out of the over N1.6 billion naira arrears of local government staff have been paid,” he stated.
The Commissioner noted that out of the over N1 billion local government pension arrears inherited, only about N300 million was still outstanding.
He further noted that the ministry along with the 17 LGAs and their Labour unions signed an agreement for the payment of wage award of N12000 each for three months to teachers, LGAs workers and pensioners.
The commissioner said as part of efforts by the ministry to compliment the efforts of security agencies across the state, in collaboration with ALGON, purchased 35 Hilux vehicles for Operation Rainbow to strengthen the security architecture at the grassroots level, while offsetting N200 million inherited outstanding allocation to Operation Rainbow.