From Yakubu Busari,Jos
Hon Shehu Bala Shehu
The Executive Chairman of Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State , Hon. Shehu Bala Shehu and his councillors are engaged in a war of words over favourable/ lopsided payments of furniture allowances.
The legislative arm raised the concern after confirming from the appropriate authority that some selected members were already settled their furniture allowances ahead of the May, 29th handing over ceremony .
The aggrieved councillors said ,”You would recalled that due to this same action of the council Chairman the legislative arm issued an impeachment warning against him after which they unanimously agreed to abort the impeachment last year on ground he denied some Councilors their entitlements.
That development did not go down well with some of the aggrieved legislators as they set to prove the Chairman wrong this time around ,”the statement read .
The statement blamed ,”Hon Shehu Usman Bala of being biased in the payment of furniture allowances main as statutory benefits to all the councilors when he only paid majority of his brothers and few boys of the Secretary to the State Government, SSG as alleged “.
In a letter of complaint to the Commissioner Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affair Plateau State, the aggrieved Councilors sought the intervention of the Commissioner of the Ministry for all their entitlements to be settled before the expiration of the APC Administration in the State.
“The Executive Chairman maliciously and secretly decided to settle 12 Ward Councilors and paid them N500,000 each as furniture allowance around February 2023, and subsequently paid the sum of 1 million each to those same 12 Councilors this week again.
“All these were done secretly so that it will not come to the notice of the remaining 8 Ward Councilors whom are left out of this shady exercise ,they alleged.
The Chairman was accused of offsetting 8 out of the 9 councilors who share the same religious faith of their entitlements while denying 8 Councilors to wallowed in object poverty.
However, in swift reaction to the accusations labeled against him, the Chairman, Shehu Bala Usman said he never brought that ideas to discuss it with any of the councilors but the leaders of the legislative arm approached me that they be paid in installment and the first instalment was N250,000.00 .
The legislative arm principal officers demanded that the statutory benefits payments should be paid to enable them enjoy and make good use of the money .
According to him, ” they wanted the money to be paid in buck so that they won’t have issue but in my own wisdom I explainer to them the condition of lean resources available to the council which can’t accommodate all of them at once so we have segment it in batches .
“The agreement we all reached was that the first legislators would benefit N1.5 million each which the council was able to upset the payments of 500,000.00 and 1,000,000.00 as the phase 1, hoping to do same when funds is available,”he said .
Shehu denied that after sealing the discussion with the leadership some of them complained that they were sidelined in the sharing formula which is not true .
“We had an emergency meeting with all the members of legislative arm yesterday, Sunday and we all reached an agreement to suspend the method of payment and the leaders explained to them that it wasn’t the Chairman idea but they brought it on table to allow all members to enjoy the furniture allowances and other entitlements before the expiration of the tenure,he said .
He stated that only 8 members of the legislative arm denied that they were not contacted by the leaders of house before such decision was enforced so they have to reverse the entire agreement which was taken sitting on Sunday .
“As they refused that they were not consulted the house unanimously step down that agreement so we resolve to continue paying those who claim they were not consulted first so that is the development that took place yesterday Sunday ,21st of May,2023 at the council headquarters.
Shehu reiterated that ,”All we are saying is that the council has reversed the method because some were not consulted from beginning of the discussion before embarking on the said agreement reached but however, we promised to step aside the leaders decision to ensure that members benefited from the furniture allowances as enshrined in the constitution “,.
The leader of the legislative arm ,Hon Yakubu Itse confirmed to this medium the view of the Chairman but said they suggested to him on how their members would make good use of the money if payments are to be made at once .
Itse bappealed to the affected councillors to remain calm “as everyone must be paid because that is their statutory benefits and nobody can deny them ,the Chairman try to clear everybody but the resources is not there and the biggest challenge now is non availability of cash so we all arrange to be pay in batches.”
“The entitlement is mandatory but the resources is not on ground. We assure them of definite payment, Hon Yakubu Itse confirmed.
