A coalition of advocacy groups has claimed “nothing on ground” or tangible to justify the alleged N513 billion statutory allocations to Benue State since last year.

But Governor Hyacinth Alia, while faulting the claim, insisted that the “impressive rating of Benue State on the transparency index speaks volumes about the judicious usage of the resources of the state since I assumed office on May 29, 2023.”

In a statement jointly signed by Dennis Agema, who is President of Network for Transparent Governance (NTG), and Oliver Omenka, Secretary General, the coalition accused the governor of the state of falling short of transparency and accountability in the usage of the huge amount of funds.

The coalition claimed that it was privy to information that since the removal of the fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu on May 29, 2023, Benue had reportedly witnessed astronomic increase in federal allocations, soaring from an “average of N3.5 billion to between N11 billion and N12 billion monthly, as local government allocations have also seen a rise, with a minimum of N9.7 billion now disbursed each month, resulting in over N346 billion flowing into state accounts in just a year and a half.”

The coalition called out the governor for allegedly failing “to deliver on his campaign promises to clear the arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities within his first 100 days in office, and to return the internally displaced people to their ancestral homelands within the first 100 days of his administration.”

Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Tersoo Kula, pointed to his principal’s several developmental projects spread across the nook and crannies of the state.

He queried: “Sometimes, I feel reluctant to patronise these faceless antagonists masquerading as anti-corruption crusaders. Where were they when the accountability briefing was done? Where were they when the Assembly summoned MDAs for budget performance scrutiny?”