A group under the auspices of Abia Reawakening Group is concerned over Abia state’s rising debt under the watch of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu.
The group, in a statement on Friday, explained how the state was thrown into a huge financial mess after the March 27th Aba North and South Federal Constituency election.
It said the State borrowed hugely to finance the election which the Governor used to create a false impression of acceptance of PDP led State government.
According to group, the salaries of civil servants were cut ranging from 20.000 to 5 .000 depending on the level or grade of civil servants.
The labour union (NLC) moved swiftly to find out reason for the arbitrary reduction of the salaries of civil servants. While the Accountant general of the State was in denial of the reduction, the Hon Commissioner for Finance Dr Aham Ukoh attributed it to an IT related challenge promising to correct these reductions in the April salary.
However, we are worried as the excuse or reason from the govt may just be to divert attention as many Statutory payments for last month are still outstanding till date.
The statement further said: The Abia State house of assembly though got their over head allowance around 19th of April which is almost one month after the FAAC meeting, a member of the house also confirmed that their salary was cut with 100.000 which the Commissioner of Finance is yet to give good reason for the reduction.
“This also include all the payments to the Parastatals in Abia which are being owed an average of 24 months. These include Abia Poly 26 months.Absu 10months. HMB 19 months. ABSUTH 25 months Arochukwu Technical 28 mnoths, etc.
The (NUT) teachers called off their 4 months old strike with a promise from the State government that all their outstanding arrears of 13 months for Senior Secondary,12 months for Junior Secondary and 6months months for primary school will be fully addressed.
Unfortunately, these teachers that called of their strike beacuse of the way the Governor pleaded have been left without any salary even as at today.
The only unit that have seen some respite lately not minding the 27 months arrears is the the State pension.Unfortunately, they are yet to get their monthly pension for last month This has caused serious tension amongs these old pensioners.
The group said its aware that Abia State got about N3.1b from FAAC for the month of March and 3.6b for April according to CBN report. The big question is where are Abia allocations?
This enquiry also include the local government allocation as these workers were paid half salary for last month with no hope of a better future.
“We warned our Politicans that were selling their properties to context the last local government election to be careful as they were going to meet carcass on being sworn in.”
“Last week most councillors were seen wearing long faces as their money were also reduced just to accommodate the greed of their paymasters that have an agreed amount that must be returned from the JAAC account monthly.”
It is being alleged that the State took huge loans from their bankers and the impact of the repayments are eating very deep into what we have as an allocation.
These loans, according to the group were for the various reasons and resurfacing of some of the roads within Aba, as expected the contractors have all abandoned sites even before the rains started since the State has gone broke.
“We are in a big mess”, the statement read.
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