President Muhammadu Buhari advised Governors to pay workers in their states this Christmas, but made no mention of clearing arrears of salaries owed the workers, the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) has clarified.
\nIn a statement that sent chills across the board from analysts, observers, and labour leaders, the forum, according to its Secretariat spokesman, Abdulrazque Barkindo, the governors forum insisted, “No\u00a0mention of\u00a0all workers arrears,\u00a0was ever\u00a0made,\u00a0by\u00a0President Muhammadu Buhari.\u00a0”
\nMany feared the statement suggests the governors planned to continue to owe workers their salaries.
\nThe Forum’s statement reads fully: Governors of the 36 states of the\u00a0federation\u00a0have\u00a0pledged to work\u00a0assiduously\u00a0towards ensuring that they make\u00a0workers happy by paying their emoluments before the commencement of the Yuletide season.\u00a0\u00a0
\nThis is following the\u00a0instruction\u00a0by \u00a0President Muhammadu Buhari that governors should be paid what is due to their states to\u00a0ensure that workers spend\u00a0Christmas with money in their pockets and a smile on their faces.\u00a0\u00a0
\nThis presidential directive was issued at a meeting between the governors and the president which held at the Aso Rock Villa, on Monday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nThe governors had expressed profound\u00a0 gratitude\u00a0to the President for his magnanimity in hearkening to the needs of the states and understanding with them towards helping\u00a0to solve some of the intractable financial problems of governance, top among which is the\u00a0lingering\u00a0problem of\u00a0 workers’\u00a0 salaries.\u00a0\u00a0
\nThey pledged, therefore,\u00a0to\u00a0rise\u00a0up\u00a0 to\u00a0the\u00a0 occasion\u00a0collectively,\u00a0as a\u00a0mark of\u00a0their respect for President Muhammadu Buhari\u00a0and empathy for the workers by paying\u00a0before Christmas, once the Finance,\u00a0the Budget and Planning Ministries and the Central\u00a0Bank of Nigeria (CBN)\u00a0disburse\u00a0the monies owed them, as instructed.\u00a0\u00a0
\nThe President had\u00a0remarked that,\u00a0\u201cI will not be saying much because the responsible ministers are here: Finance, Budget and Planning and the Central Bank of Nigeria. \u00a0I request you to appoint your own team to come and sit down with them (referring to the governors).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u201cThis should be done, not only for next year\u2019s budget but for this Christmas.\u00a0 The Minister of Finance, Budget and Planning and the Central Bank should sit down with you in a sub-committee to see how much can be released before Christmas,” the President instructed.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nNo\u00a0mention of\u00a0all workers arrears,\u00a0was ever\u00a0made,\u00a0by\u00a0President Muhammadu Buhari.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u201cFor Nigerians without sources other than their salary, I am concerned that workers should be able to pay rent, school fees, buy drugs and take care of their families. I am so much concerned that people should have something to eat for Christmas,\u00a0President Muhammadu Buhari declared.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nThe governors had appealed to the president to\u00a0once\u00a0again\u00a0authorize\u00a0the Finance ministry and the other officials to hasten the payment of the remainder of the Paris and\u00a0London\u00a0Club\u00a0loan refunds as they had factored the monies into their 2018 budgets.\u00a0\u00a0
\nPresident Muhammadu Buhari’s instruction that the money be paid before Christmas however draws its background from the series of delays in the previous disbursements to the states by the Finance Ministry, which by commission or\u00a0omission\u00a0had\u00a0exacerbated\u00a0and\u00a0indeed\u00a0increased\u00a0the\u00a0number\u00a0of\u00a0months\u00a0that\u00a0workers\u00a0are\u00a0owed\u00a0salaries.\u00a0\u00a0
\nFor\u00a0example,\u00a0the\u00a0first\u00a0bailout\u00a0that\u00a0President\u00a0Buhari\u00a0approved\u00a0was not paid\u00a0until\u00a0October, four months after the president had given approval for the money to be paid. It was the same practice with the first tranche of the Paris-London Club repayment, which was approved in mid 2016 but took until December 2016\u00a0to hit the states’ accounts.\u00a0It is imperative to add that the Paris\u2013London funds were legitimate funds of the states and not loans as several sources had thought.\u00a0
\nBarring any such happenstances, however, governors, who are equally very worried about their workers’ plights,\u00a0are ready to wipe\u00a0away workers\u00a0tears\u00a0by\u00a0paying their emoluments before Christmas.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Muhammadu Buhari advised Governors to pay workers in their states this Christmas, but made no mention of clearing arrears of salaries owed the workers, the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) has clarified. In a statement that sent chills across the board from analysts, observers, and labour leaders, the forum, according to its Secretariat spokesman, Abdulrazque […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-jobs","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}