AbulRazaq, Kwara State Gov.
By Ade Adedeji, Ilorin.
A panel put in place to probe the financial activities of Local Governments in Kwara State has been told that the council areas have a backlog of N21billion as unpaid gratuities from year 2009.
Executive Secretary of the Kwara State Local Government Staff Pension Board (KWSPB) Smaila Oyelowo disclosed this in Ilorin, the State capital while testifying before the panel.
He told the Rtd. Mathew Adewara-led Panel that; “The present administration inherited N21,516,812,33 as backlog of gratuities from 2009,”
The panel was assigned to investigate an alleged monthly diversion of N300million every month from Local funds
He disclosed that N30m was being released monthly for the payment of gratuities to Local Government retirees before May 2019 adding that the present administration in the state had commendably increased it to N100m every month to gradually defray part of the outstanding debts.
“We approached the (new) state government to jerk up money being released for the payment of gratuities and (that) was expressly granted.
“Now, on monthly basis, we are receiving N100m to settle gratuities. But because of COVID-19 pandemic, we got N60m in June. In July, this has been raised to N100m again,” he told the panel, saying the board was unaware of any deduction of their money.
“We only prepare vouchers for the payment of pension for the consultant engaged for its payments while we concentrate on the issues of gratuities.
“The board does the collection of (details of) new pensioners, upgrades the payroll, and forward to the consultant for payment.”, the Executive Seceetary added.
Earlier, the Directors of Personnel Management (DPM) from the five Local Government Areas from the Kwara North District of the state had told the panel that it was baseless to allege that the sum of N300m are monthly diverted from Local Government funds.
The DPMs were Tsaduko Muhammad (Baruten), Adeyemi Oyewole (Edu), Hussein Saidu (Kaiama), Adefalu Akande (Patigi), Amuda Musbau (Moro), and some bank managers who testified before the panel.
They were made to clear the air in respect of payrolls, bank accounts, bank statements, statutory allocation papers, schedules of local government internally generated revenues, and cash books.
Chairman of the panel Justice Mathew Adewara reiterated that the panel was on a fact-finding mission to ascertain the allegations of diversion of Local Government funds in Kwara State stressing that the panel was not putting anyone on trial.
“This panel is to probe and find the veracity of the claim that N300m was being diverted by the Kwara State Government from the local governments funds. Nobody is on trial. Nobody is being prosecuted. We are only on a fact finding mission. We are to find out the correctness of your books.” the judge declared.
