Benue State governor, Gabriel Suswam, has ordered an inquiry into the activities of the State Universal Basic Education Board, following a suspicious figure submitted to government as primary school teachers’ salary by its Executive Chairman, Mr. Emmanuel Gbev.

The Governor’s curiosity was aroused by the N776million monthly salary bill submitted by Gbev, following the approval of 15 percent salary increase approved for workers in the state.

Prior to the pay rise the total take home pay of teachers in the state was N410 million. But Mr. Gbev in January presented a demand of N776 million to the Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs for remittance to his board for payment of teachers’ salaries.

Mr. Sam Odeh, Special Adviser on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs was said to have rejected the figure. Not convinced by the board chairman’s explanations, the bureau released the old figure of N410 million to the board for payment of teachers’ salaries for January pending the resolution of the issue.

But the state branch of the Nigeria Union of Teachers promptly rejected the old salary, leading to non-payment of teachers salaries for two months, as NUT also rejected the old salary for the month of February.

The Suswam government set up a committee headed by Dr Audu Achigili, Secretary to the State Government to ensure table payment of salaries to teachers to verify Gbev’s claims.

The committee dispatched commissioners and Special Advisers to their respective local governments to supervise the screening and payment of January salary to teachers, using the new salary structure.

Gbev, however, insists the salary figure went high because of the cost of the new promotion that was factored into the new salary scale. He argued that the increment is above 30 percent and not 15 percent as claimed by the Special Adviser on Local Government, Mr. Odeh.

But the Special Adviser on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs told ACROSS NIGERIA that the bureau rejected the figure, noting that ‘‘We owe it a duty to the good people of Benue State to be prudent with the resources available to them.’’

Mr. Odeh is not the only one asking questions about activities of the board. During the regime of George Akume the board was used as conduit pipe for siphoning public funds into private pockets. For instance, two months salaries of primary school teachers for the months of June and July 2005 amounting to over N500m, were not paid because teachers went on strike. Although the administration of Suswam cleared the arrears last year, nobody has been told what happened to the money. May be this probe will provide answers to the many questions on the activities of the board.

Reported by Sunday Orinya.