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Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom has announced the recovery of over N800 million from fraudulent deals at the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).
He vowed to bring all contractors who failed to renovate or build primary schools, after collecting mobilisation fees, to book.
Ortom, while addressing staff of the board during an inspection tour of facilities, warned all those engaging in fraudulent activities at the board to desist or be prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He decried the poor performance of SUBEB in its mandate of boosting primary education in the state.
Declaring the time for politicking and sycophancy over, the governor said he would go all out to reposition not only SUBEB for a better primary/basic education but the entire state in the remaining years of his administration.
The governor further intimated that his government, through SUBEB, would inject over N5.6 billion into basic education, adding that about N609 million from the 2018 Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) intervention would be matched with same amount by SUBEB to access N1.218 billion for use by SUBEB.
His words: “SUBEB is known for bad name, especially in the staff’s attitude to work. Some of you are involved in fraudulent deals, salary padding and ghost workers. I have no business stealing from government.
“They made several allegations that money was stolen here and given to me. That is a big lie. We have saved over N800 million because of checks carried out here. We have planned to inject N4 billion into primary education. It is our desire to make primary education the strongest. I am not taking anything for granted in this second term.
“Despite the large number of teachers that have retired and died, the wage bill is still high. We are going to do verification of teachers. We will take innovative measures that will turn around primary education in the state. Balance of N41 billion will be given to us by the Federal Government, which would be used to pay salaries.”
According to him, the state government has also accessed additional N2.2 billion from United Bank for Africa (UBA) to pay as counterpart to access same amount at UBEC, which brings the total to N4.4 billion for the 2019 intervention.