Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State has spent a total of N3,320,263,570.41 in three months to run his office, while the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) also spent N82,579,953.72 to run his office.
The state government embarked on the huge expenditure despite owing nurses and other workers of the Enugu State Teaching Hospital (ESUT-Parklane) eight months of arrears of salary.
According to the Enugu State Budget Performance report for the third quarter, on page 16 of the document published on the state website, the government also spent N15,348,007.42 on the Lagos Liaison office.
Within the three-month period, a total of N476,118,498.74 was spent on the 25-member state house of assembly.
As shown on page 34 of the budget performance for the 3Q, Governor Mbah-led government spent N150,480,105.05k on fuel and lubricants with fuel alone accounting for N119,900,292.60k within the three months under review.
As shown on page 31 of the budget performance documents, Governor Peter Mbah’s government also spent over a total N2.3 billion on meal subsidies, newspapers, inducement, wardrobe, and transport allowances among others.
Meanwhile, as shown on page 30 there was no investment in Education under capital expenditure.
SaharaReporters had in October reported that workers at the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, ESUT-Parklane, protested against the non-payment of seven months’ salary arrears by the Enugu State government.
The affected staff included nurses, cleaners, and security guards who were said to be employed by the immediate past administration of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
The protesting workers who shut down all hospital activities marched through various departments with placards chanting labour songs.
One of the affected staff had told SaharaReporters that since February, they had not been paid salaries, wondering whether they were not entitled to be paid their wages.
“We have made our representation to the state government. We have also appealed to the management of the hospital before to pay us our wages but to no avail. We took to the street today so that the world would hear us.
“It is most heartless of a government to owe wages of workers for up to seven months at this period, yet the workers are still coming to work every day. There’s no justification to owe us monthly salaries.”
She had, however, appealed to Governor Peter Mbah to pay them their wages.
