By Oginyi Ruth
Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi on Wednesday said any Civil servant, public servant or political appointees who do not have Bank Verification Number will forfeit his or her salary starting from November 2019 through when the person will provide the BVN.
He spoke at the Government House Abakaliki during a presentation by branch controller Central Bank of Nigeria, Abakaliki Mr Adayi, Chris. Onah on Ebonyi, status on CBN data.
Governor Umahi who expressed dissatisfaction with the state Account status said “Anybody that doesn’t have BVN should not expect salary, no BVN no salary whether it is political or not. The Deputy Governor has BVN and I have BVN.
“So, any political appointee that doesn’t have BVN will no longer receive salary. Any Civil Servant that doesn’t have BVN or have incomplete BVN or intentionally gave out wrong BVN, I have noted that and such a person will not take salary until they have BVN.
“Commissioner for Local Government, you have to implement that immediately. No salary for the month of Novmebr, December until everybody has got a BVN, this is very important. So, some of you that have not opened account for the first time in your life, you now open account. They said Ebonyi is the least in bank account opening, it shouldn’t be”
In the presentation, the Branch Controller Adayi, disclosed that CBN, program known as, Account Opening week flag off will take place on Monday, December 2, 2019 and Ebonyi State was selected for the take off in southeast this is to boost the account status of the state in the central bank database.
The Branch Controller , explained that the Financial Acess Performance across Geo-political zones of the country showed that South East has average exclusion rate of 29.3%.
And Ebonyi state has 43.6% which is above the national average of 36.8% and the region average of 29.3%while other states in the zone are recording an average of between 25.4%-28.7%, Ebonyi state was still very far at 43.6% exclusion rate, hence the state was selected in the south east for a pilot exercise for account opening week which would commence from December 2-7, 2019.
Mr. Adayi, said the state government has accessed over N12bn through various interventions of the bank while some other persons in the state also accessed over N4bn.
