Motorcycle Loan Beneficiaries Owed N5m …Raise Alarm Over Excess Deductions

The Rivers State Ministry of Finance is owing over N5 million as over deductions from beneficiaries of a motorcycle loan scheme organised by the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE) for civil servants in the state in 2008.

The Tide recalls that AUPCTRE organised a motorcycle loan scheme for civil servants in Rivers State in 2008 valued at N100,000 per motocycle.

The cost of the motorcycle was deducted from the beneficiaries’ salaries through the state Ministry of Finance. However investigations show that the deductions of N5,500.00 per month from when a beneficiary received the item, increased to N10,000 and is still being deducted till-date, even though it ought to have been fully paid up by the end of 2009.

Speaking to The Tide in his office last Thursday, the state secretary of AUPCTRE, Comrade James Kobah confirmed that the beneficiaries of the motorcycle loan were being owed over N5 million which is to be paid as refund by the state Ministry of Finance.

According to him, since the Finance Ministry had requested all ministries and parastatals to come for their workers’ payclips from the year it suspended the issuance, the affected civil servants (beneficiaries) should forward the payclips on which the deductions were reflected with a letter to the AUPCTRE’s office for onward submission to the Finance Ministry to ensure the stoppage of the deductions and possible refund of the over deductions.

Comrade Kobah noted that the excess deduction was the handiwork of some staff of the Ministry of Finance who want to get rich at the expense of the beneficiaries, attributing it to lack of work culture among  some civil servant and a vaulting ambition to cheat.

He called for adequate funding of government media organizations and other establishments “because its agencies which perform the job and implement its policies and programmes need to be provided with the necessary equipment and facilities to work,” he said.

One of the beneficiaries of the motorcycle loan who did not want his name on print said he received the item in March 2008 and that the deduction of N10,000 for the motorcycle is still reflecting on his payclips till-date.