Cross River: Endemic fraud, paucity of funds delay payment of gratuity -Otu

Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River State has attributed the delay in the payment of outstanding gratuities to endemic fraud and paucity of funds.

In spite of these challenges, Otu gave the assurance that payments for the second tranche will commence soon.

Fielding questions from journalists at the third media parley since assumption of office on May 29, 2023, Otu said the issue of gratuity, “would take a governor with the heart of a lion to actually pay even N1 billion in gratuity because apart from the paucity of funds, we have endemic fraud layers that will take some years to take out”.

The governor stated that when he came into government, gratuity “is one of the prime areas which I wanted to resolve. Because if the people who suffered for us, who invested 35 years of service to bring the state to where we have taken over are not well taken care of, then we are not going anywhere, because their prayers are prayers of tears. And those prayers are against the government.

“They worked hard, they put in all they had into this service, and look at the way the service is treating them. And we even have some people who died because of some very meagre sums and these were top people in government who had put in their all”.

This situation, Otu said, “compelled and forced us to make sure that despite the fraud still in it that we attend to these issues of gratuity and I think we have started the process. We had some timelines which we wanted to follow, and then add some, but then, the minimum wage came in.

“When the minimum wage came in, I think even the federal government which is by far richer than the sub nationals, was taken aback. And, when a position like that is taken, the union will not listen and this is the people’s first government. We cannot walk away from our responsibilities.

“We have to, despite the paucity of funds and the fact that you see our position when the FAAC allocations are printed out, our position there is second to the last. In fact, most of the time the last”.

He stated that since his government has been able to seal the loopholes in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and make sure that “whatever we are able to raise goes straight back to government, we have been able to gather some funds to make sure that at least we are able to pay that salary.

“Because once you are given an award that is the N70,000 minimum wage, you stand by that even when the federal government is not able to pay, we continue to pay because it’s a promise. And our word is our bond, which we had given to our people.

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“So we are looking at ways in which we will immediately address the second batch because I believe that within the period of this first year, we will get out all we are owing in terms of these gratuities”.

However , the governor said “we discovered that some of the people that collected these gratuities are not actually retirees .So we are still fighting hard to make sure through demographics, that we are able to ascertain the real people and to get to them. But we have discovered that even some people we have paid to have nothing to do with it, and with such funds we will recover it back.

“And when we get all those things together and add what we are going to get, I believe that we will be moving to the second batch very soon. But I can assure you that with that which we did, the prayers have changed. That is why God is smiling at us and we enjoy the blessings that we do”.

Otu noted that the journey so far “is not really an easy journey, but I believe that you have been with me all the way. The challenge from the beginning was to make sure that we serve the state that is egalitarian in nature, where opportunities will open for each and every one. Our challenge was to make sure that we deliver to what I would say the poorest of the poor, it does not matter where.

“We discovered that Cross River is so vast that to reach our very people in the rural areas is a bit difficult, but we put quite some structures in place which we try to make sure that we get.”