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Despite Paris Club Refunds, Cross River, Six Others Yet to Clear Salary Arrears of Workers

|Sen. Ben Ayade, Cross River Governor
Despite the release of the second tranche of the Paris Club refunds to the 36 states in the country, seven of them comprising Borno, Cross River, Anambra, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi, Gombe and Bauchi have still not cleared the backlog of unpaid workers’ wages in their states.

A survey conducted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) showed that many state governments across the federation had utilised the second tranche of the Paris Club refunds they received to clear the arrears of their serving and retired workers’ entitlements.

However, in most states where the arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities have been paid, some civil servants and retirees, especially those in the council areas, are still being owed.

The survey indicated that some of the workers and pensioners were owed salaries and pensions for periods ranging between two and 11 months.

The federal government in July released N243.79 billion to the states as the second tranche of the refund, having earlier released N388.30 billion to them in December 2016.

The refunds were released following protests by the states against the over-deductions from their Federation Account allocations for external debt services between 1995 and 2002.

The federal government had advised the state governments to use between 50 and 75 per cent of their share of the refund to clear the arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities they owed.

The survey showed that 15 of the 22 (68.1 per cent) states surveyed so far had utilised the money in settling the arrears of entitlements while seven had not.

Those that had paid are Jigawa, Yobe and Adamawa in the North-east; Kwara in the North-central zone, all states in the South-south except Cross River, and all states in the South-west.

Bauchi, Gombe and Borno in the North-east, as well as Enugu, Anambra and Ebonyi in the South-east, were yet to offset the arrears.
Politics 5063660220607235332

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