Bauchi State Governor, Mohammed Abubakar, has disclosed that his administration spends N5.1b on payment of civil servants salary monthly.
The governor, who condemned the critics of his government over his performance for the past two years, described them as people ignorant about governance.
He said that despite paucity of funds and empty treasury his administration inherited, he has performed better than other governors in Nigeria.
He spoke when a delegation of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) executive led by its Chairman Ibrahim Mallam Goje visited him at the Government House, Bauchi on Tuesday.
The governor said: “I can count how many times I collected over N5.1 billion as federal allocation. In the last 27 months, I did not collect N5 billion more than five months and despite this, we are paying N2.6 billion to state civil servants and N2.5 billion to local government workers which amount to N5.1 billion.
“I can boast that I have performed more than other governors that collect federal allocation more than Bauchi State because despite paucity of funds in our disposal, we have paid salary up till date without owning any civil servants or pensioners.
“I want to challenge my critics to check what I am getting and compare it with what I am doing in the state and I want to assure that I will do better to improve the living standard of our people.”
The governor thereby cautioned the media practitioners against reporting issues that are against journalism ethics.
He said, “As a media practitioners, you have a lot of responsibility to report issues of governance correctly. You should not be partisan as a journalist because you do not belong to a political party; so you are supposed to report the truth”.
He reiterated the support of his administration to support and partner with working journalists in the state.
The state Chairman of NUJ, Ibrahim Mallam Goje, had commended Governor Abubakar for the achievement recorded by his administration in the last two years especially his commitment on oil exploration in the state.
Goje then urged the governor to improve the welfare of staff of state media organization as well as provide sporting facilities at NUJ secretariat.
Source: nigerianewsflight.com