Abia government vows to prosecute pension scam syndicates, directs correction of errors in payment of minimum wage

Abia State Government has vowed to prosecute all those civil servants suspected to be involved in the pension fund fraud scheme recently.

Governor Alex Otti made this public while speaking at Government House, Umuahia during the monthly media chat tagged “Dr Alex Otti Speaks to Abians”.

He said that the government would continue with its efforts to sanitize the civil service and stressed that tolerance for corruption is zero.

The Governor disclosed that once his government got convincing information of the pension fraud syndicate, the government arrested the people involved.

“We continued with our efforts to sanitize the civil service. I’m sure you would have heard some reports about some civil servants who were involved in pension fraud”.

“We are continuing with their prosecution. I have authorized that in the next few days, they (pension fraud suspects) should be arraigned before the court to come and tell us how come they were stealing from the State”

“From the report I got, about ten or eleven of them. Some of them are outside the country. We are going to repatriate them to answer to the State of their sins”, Gov. Otti stated.

Governor Otti said it is unfortunate that some members of the opposition were brazenly castigating government on air against the decision to arrest the suspects and assured that government was not going back on its decision no matter who is involved.

“We can’t tolerate that kind of corruption. No matter who is involved, people who are defending thieves should be perceived and treated like thieves. So, we are issuing a warning. There is a limit to opposition”, Gov. Otti stated.

The State Chief Executive used the forum to say that he has directed the Accountant-General of the State and the Commissioner for Finance to look at the errors noticed in the payment of the new minimum wage and correct them accordingly.

“We received a few reports that there were some errors, some computation issues and I have directed the Accountant-General and the Commissioner for Finance to sit down and look at it and correct those errors so that we don’t have complaints coming from there. Gov. Otti stated.

The Governor said that work would soon start at the 200 primary healthcare centres in the three Senatorial zones of the State, saying that the whole idea is to provide quality and accessible healthcare for all

“Very soon, you will see that work will start in the primary healthcare centres. By the time we are done with the 200, we will move to another 200 until we touch every primary healthcare centre in the State”.

“At the same time, the 22 secondary healthcare centres are receiving attention step by step. We are not stopping at that. We are also working hard to ensure that we attract the right personnel”.

Governor Otti, who revealed that his administration is making arrangements to introduce electric vehicle buses for intra and inter city transportation to cushion the effects of removal of fuel subsidy said that discussions to that effect has reached advanced stage.

He equally informed that he has been able to defray almost N90 Billon out of about N191 Billon he inherited from May 29, 2023. He maintained that, so far, his administration has not borrowed a Kobo but has continued to fix roads, provide quality healthcare, renovate and upgrade schools, tackle security among others. He called for more support to enable him succeed.

Jinanwa Azubuike/Divine Nwankwo
Govt. House Press, Umuahia.
07-11-2024.