BENIN CITY – A Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Edo State, Elder Macaulay Ovienria, has lauded Governor Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole for taking a bold step  recently to announce the forfeiting of security votes and allowances by the chairmen and councilors of the Eighteen Local Government Councils in the state in order to enable them pay their staff salaries arrears, which have run into months.
In a press release dated   6th July, 2015 and which was made available to the Nigerian OBSERVER, Elder Ovienria maintained that the action of the governor was in the right direction, especially in view of the pains and agencies the local government staff had been subjected to by their chairmen.
He further stressed that the non-payment of salaries arrears to the workers had caused serious hardship to the people saying that many of them had abruptly had broken homes and others dead due to the abnormal situation.
Ovienria, who, however, expressed sadness over the non payment of salaries arrears to the workers for a period between one to nine months, said that the governor’s actions were justified with regard to the change slogan of the party, APC, through which they became chairmen.
According to him, the directives of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole that the local government chairmen and councilors in the state to forfeit their security votes and allowances until the salaries of workers are completely paid and contractors should not be paid by them too, would curb the rots in the local government system, while calling for a strict compliance to effect the positive change which the people had clamoured for to promote good working relationship for good governance in the state.
Elder Ovienria stated further that the chairman and councillors should also feel the pains which the people were experiencing and that with this development, they (chairmen) should as a matter of urgent importance, device methods of generating revenues rather than relying on the federal allocations, when it was obvious that there was a drop in oil price in the international market.
While he sympathized with the workers, he also urged them to remain patient and steadfast as their salaries would be paid in no distant time and that the governor is a leader with humanitarian disposition to the people, just as he charged them to support him to actualise his dream of transforming Edo State to greatness.