Plateau governor, Caleb Mutfwtang, has disclosed that he inherited N11 billion in salary arrears from his predecessor, Simon Lalong.
He stated this during a town hall meeting sponsored by the Plateau Radio Television Corporation in Jos on Monday.
He said, “Over the years, Plateau had deviated from the right path and that is why we decided to steer the state to the right path. With the little we have seen since taking over, there is a lot of work to be done. We inherited a civil service on strike. Out of a wage of N2.9bn for February 2023, only N900m was paid. As of now, I can tell the people of Plateau State, without politicking, that we owe salaries up to May to the tune of N11bn, and what we inherited in the coffers of the Plateau State Government is N1.1bn.”
The governor further stressed that he did not fire the civil servants hired by his predecessor, but rather suspended them to allow for an investigation into the alleged irregularities committed by the previous administration.
He said, “We discovered that some of them who were employed by the past administration had their employment letters backdated. This is wrong. So, we are investigating the matter to ensure that laid down rules and regulations are followed.”
Mutwang also bemoaned the previous administration’s handling of security issues in the state, calling the situation “alarming.”
He said, “Two days after I took over, we convened a security council meeting, and to our shock, there had never been any security council meeting on the Plateau for the past year. And we had to convene that meeting because only three weeks ago,we lost over a hundred souls on the Plateau in the Mangu LGA. Just yesterday (Sunday), we lost another 23 persons in the Riyom LGA and still counting. Yesterday also, the Chief of Mushere in Bokkos LGA was kidnapped.”
The Governor stated that his government chose to employ a senior military commander as Special Adviser on Security in order to solve the security situation.
“We know we are going to start in a difficult way but we did not think it was going to be this difficult. We do not make excuses, we come to find solutions and by the grace of God, we will find solutions and restore confidence in government,” he said.
