BASG fumes over allege state funds misappropriation

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By: Mohammed Kawu, Bauchi.
Bauchi state government has debunked the allegation that Governor Mohammed Abubakar’s administration received N72 billion as allocation from the federation accounts from June 2015 to May 2016 without commensurate developmental projects being provided in the state within the period under review.
A Government House, Bauchi statement said that authors of the online publication failed to state that whatever amount Bauchi State Government is said to have collected comes to it with the share of the 20 Local Government Councils in the state.
Besides, the statement signed by press secretary to the Governor, Abubakar al-Sadique said that the government inherited many other obligations of past administrations, ranging from repayment of loans owed the state which is usually deducted at source before even the money goes into government accounts.
“But the truth is that the revenue that accrued to Bauchi State Government and the 20 local government councils, including statutory allocations from the federation accounts, VAT and internally generated revenue from June 2015, which was the revenue first to be managed by the administration of Mohammed Abubakar, to May 2016, is 82.737 billion naira”.
It explained that out of the amount, Ministry for Local Government Affairs got N35.023 billion, while a breakdown of the revenue that accrued to the state shows that in the month of June 2015 for both the state and local government councils, N9.66 billion was realized which increased to N13.4 billion in July 2015 and dropped to N7.26 billion in August 2015.
“In the month of September 2015 the revenue rose to N9.79 billion and again in October 2015 further nosedived to N5.40 billion. The revenue that accrued to the state in the month of November 2015 was N6.53 billion, N7.14 billion in December 2015 and in January 2016 it was N5.86 billion. For the month of February 2016 it was N5.08 billion which again dropped to N4.94 billion in March 2016, while in the month of April 2016 the revenue was N4.15 billion, dropping drastically to N3.48 billion in May 2016”.
Al-Sadique said however that payment of salary has remained an issue for some months now in spite of the efforts being made by the Abubakar-led administration to pay workers and pensioners their salaries and salary-related entitlements.
He gave a summary breakdown of state expenditure from June 2015 to May 2016, covering payment of salary for state workers, teachers’ and Local Government Councils’ workers.
“LGC’s pensions show that in June 2015 N9.47 billion was expended, while in July 2015 N13.64 billion was paid. For August 2015, N7.18 billion was used to pay workers and pensioners and in September 2015 it was N6.49 billion that was paid. In October, November and December 2015, N7.01 billion, N8.63 billion and N7.28 billion were paid as workers’ salary and pensioners”.
The press secretary revealed that N5.34 billion was paid in January 2016, which rose to N5.35 billion in February 2016, for the months of March, April  and May 2016, the expenditure incurred remained at N4.98 billion, N3.71 billion, and N247,690,208 million respectively.
“From June 2015, the administration paid workers’ salary, pension and other salary-related entitlements of 79, 373, 933, 125 billion naira, out of which the State Ministry for Local Government Affairs took 33.074 billion naira”.
These, he said, were in addition to other monthly obligations, among which are payments for feeding boarding students of secondary schools, monthly overhead and constituency projects to the State House of Assembly as well as payment of bills, treatment of water and settlement of other contractual obligations.
Abubakar al-Sadique, while explaining that the Bauchi administration whose head is an eminent legal luminary, operates an open door policy, and therefore appealed to anybody seeking public information to follow due process and apply for same from the relevant government offices and not rush to press without authenticating facts.

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