HOW TITUS ZAM DEFRAUDS BENUE WITH CENTRAL PAYMENT OF LGS STAFF

** Zam injected 7600 fake names into Bureau’s payroll
Nigerian Concord Newspaper
Facts have emerged on how the special adviser to Governor Samuel Ortom on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Honourable Titus Zam, has been defrauding the people of Benue state on the central payment of salaries to the twenty three local government staff in the state.
This is coming after our findings have confirmed that Titus has been pocketing the salaries of about 7000 staff that he had illegally dismissed.
Our findings also confirmed that he has added about fake 600 names to the payroll of the Bureau and salaries are being paid to these people even when they aren’t staff of the office.
The fraudulent activities of Titus Zam was further confirmed by Nigerian Concord’s reporter who was at the Benue State House of Assembly in makurdi when the lawmakers summoned him to appear and explain why salaries of Local Government staff are being delayed uneccesarily.
It would be recalled that the Benue House of Assembly members had recently waded into the strike declared by NLC and TUC Benue Chapter last Tuesday.
It would also be recalled that the lawmakers have been inviting stake holders to find a way of resolving the non payment of salaries for over thirteen months in the state under the administration of Governor Ortom.
While briefing the lawmakers, Titus Zam explained that he inherited the central payment system of local government salaries from the past administration of Dr. Gabriel Suswam.
Our correspondent who went further to the Bureau of Local Government to confirm the veracity of Zam’s claims reported why salaries have not been paid at the local government tier.
Documents made available to Nigerian Concord by top staff of the Bureau of Local Government indicate that the previous administration of Governor Gabriel Suswan had engaged Messrs. TECH VIBES LTD. to automate the salary payment system at the third tier of government in order to eliminate ghost workers.
The documents explain further that the contract was in two phases.
It was gathered that Phase one was the Biometrics capturing of all staff under their respective local governments centrally at the Bureau of Local Government, while the second phase was to transfer the biostatistics to individual local governments and attach the schedules to their various salary accounts to enable the local governments handle their salaries at their local government headquarters through their bank accounts.
According to our findings, Suswam’s administration did this in order to comply with the provisions of the Constitution and the Benue Local Government Law 2007, which states that local governments must be given their allocations monthly to administer.
Further records obtained at the Bureau indicate that the past administration of Dr. Suswam had just completed the phase one of the project and invited Salary Account Officers in the various local governments for training, preparatory to phase two of the project when their tenure expired in May 2015.
Our investigators further reported that on assumption of duty, Mr. Titus Zam after studying the agreement fraudulently decided to cancel the phase two of the contract and directed the Contractor to domicile payment of all local government staff salaries at the Bureau of Local Government against the provisions of the laws guiding the operations of local government in Benue State.
Apart from that, Mr. Zam also reviewed the cost of the contact to over Six Hundred Million without due process and made payment in tranches without any additional work done.
It would be recalled that he had confirmed this on a Radio Benue programme in November 2015 when the centre was to be opened. In his words, Titus said that the Computer Centre costs the government over Six Hundred million Naira even when the initial contract sum was Eighty eight million Naira.
Our investigation also showed that after using the 7,000 staff that were maintained through SURE-P funds, who were already captured on the automated payroll to apply for Bailout funds, Titus Zam summarily dismissed the staff manually without removing their names from the automated payroll.
Our investigation also confirmed that apart from retaining the 7,000 dismissed staff, Mr. Zam added 600 names on the payroll.
Documents available to this newspaper indicate that the names are not staff of any local government, but their salaries are paid any time other genuine workers are paid.
This newspaper has confirmed that the diversion of salaries meant for the 7,600 staff is the principal reason why Mr. Zam refused to implement the phase two of the contract which would have made it impossible for him to conceal and corner several millions of Naira monthly.
One of the Directors who preferred not be mentioned for security reasons told our investigators that Mr. Zam did not inherit the central payment from anybody.
According to him, at no time were salaries paid centrally during Suswam’s administration. He added that Zam’s central payment commenced in November 2015 which made it impossible for him to have inherited that from people who left in May 2015.
The Director further stated that Mr. Zam had taken advantage of Governor Ortom’s cluelessness to wreck the Bureau, noting that he had perpetrated the act of not giving local government allocations in cash through their accounts.
“Rather he uses the funds the way he wants in the Bureau and send figures on paper to the various Treasurers of local governments and compels them to retire the amount and forward Treasury receipts to the Bureau. This is criminal and must be stopped” he fumed.
Also a staff of the Accounts department confirmed to Nigerian Concord that there are serious anomalies at the Computer Centre.
He suggested that both Mr. Zam and the Contractor be invited by the Benue lawmakers to tell the true story, stressing that funds are being diverted by Zam monthly.
Stating further that the government could bring special software auditors to trace the manipulations at the Computer Centre, the staff also confirmed that the Adviser lied to the Benue lawmakers that he inherited the programme from the past administration.