Ebonyi State Governor, Engr. David Umahi has directed that all Ebonyi workers under State payroll should go and get their Bank Verification Number (BVN) or forfeit their salaries henceforth.

He gave this directive on Wednesday during a presentation by Adayi Chris Onah, Central Bank of Nigeria’s Branch Controller, at the Executive Chambers, Government House Abakaliki.

The Governor expressed displeasure that the State was the least state in bank accoreiterated, “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, no 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 November, 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 will now open account. They said Ebonyi is the least in bank account opening, it shouldn’t be”. He stressed.

Earlier the Branch Controller noted that the Financial Access Performance across Geo-political zones, showed that South-East has an average exclusion rate of 29.3% whereas Ebonyi State has 43.6% which is above the national average of 36.8% and the regional average of 29.3%.

In his word; “While other states in the zone, are recording an average of between 25.4%-28.7%, Ebonyi State is still very far at 43.6% exclusion rate. Hence, the state has been selected in the south east zone for pilot exercise for account opening week starting from December 2-7, 2019 in all the thirteen local government areas of the state.

He further revealed that the state government has accessed over N12bn through various interventions of the bank while some other persons in the state also accessed over N4bn.