Benue to reduce N7.8b monthly wage bill

 Benue wants to reduce its wage bill from N7.8 billion to N4.5 billion each month.

Governor Samuel Ortom said doing it would enable his administration pay workers salaries curb the over bloated monthly wage bill, ranked the highest in the country.

Ortom who spoke at the monthly stakeholders briefing meeting in Makurdi, also vowed  to prosecute the cabal behind the over-bloated wage bill in the state which in his estimation had made life unbearable for workers as government could not pay them timely.

The governor said the ranking of the state by the recent figure released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows how expediently his administration needs to act to either reduce its wage bill or its workforce for the betterment of all.

Earlier, Chairman of the staff verification and biometrics committee, the state’s Deputy Governor, Engr. Benson Abounu, gave an insight into how the wage bill of the state can be trimmed down to a manageable level from its findings so far and what it had done.

Abounu told the stakeholders that many anomalies were discovered during the ongoing staff verification exercise and that his committee painstakingly looked at many grey areas such as disengagement of contract staff, removal of medical students from state government’s pay roll, reduction in the salary of tertiary institution staff and screening of pensioners.

Benue owesall categories of its workers both at the state and local government between seven and 11 months salaries.