Despite Paris Club Refunds, Cross River, Six Others Yet to Clear Salary Arrears of Workers
https://www.fearlessreports.com/2017/09/despite-paris-club-refunds-cross-river.html
|Sen. Ben Ayade, Cross River Governor |
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.