Ogun state government pays workers December, 13th-month salaries

21.12.2017 21:18

The Ogun government states that it has paid the December and the 13th-month salary to its workers since Wednesday, December 20, ahead of the festive period.

- Ogun state commissioner for finance, Wale Osinowo, says the state has not yet received the last tranche of the Paris Club Refund

- He states that the government has cleared the severance package of former political office holders at the state level

- Osinowo explains that the ministry has earmarked the sum of N5.2bn as its recurrent expenditure for 2018 while capital expenditure would gulp N200m

The Ogun government says it has paid the December and the 13th-month salary to its workers since Wednesday, December 20, ahead of the festive period.

The state commissioner for finance, Wale Osinowo, disclosed this while defending the ministry’s 2018 budget estimate before the house committee on finance and appropriation, in Abeokuta.

The commissioner said that this was despite the fact that the state government has yet to receive the last tranche of the Paris Club Refund, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

He explained that the state government used the first tranche of the Paris Club Refund to pay the salary of its workers.

“On the Paris Club Refund, guidelines were set by the Federal government and the state government has been following it to the letter.

“When we got the second tranche, we used 75 per cent for settlement of salaries and deductions of workers while the remaining 25 per cent was used to execute projects.

“We are yet to receive the third tranche of the refund,” he said.

He added that the state government had also cleared the severance package of former political office holders at the state level.

The commissioner said that by the first quarter of 2018, the state government would clear the severance allowance of former local government political office holders.

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“The amount to be paid between 2007-2011 is N540m while the amount between 2011 and 2015 stands at N560m which makes it just over N1.1bn to be paid as severance to the local government political office holders.

“Before the first quarter of 2018, we will ensure we settle the severance allowance,” he said.

He explained that the ministry had earmarked the sum of N5.2bn as its recurrent expenditure for 2018 while capital expenditure would gulp N200m.

Osinowo added that the 2018 budget of the state tagged “Budget of Accelerated Development” was workable and realistic.

Meanwhile, following the direct deduction of taxes from the subvention released to College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti, lecturers of the institution on Wednesday, December 20, protested against the Ekiti state governor's directive, Premium Times reports.

The lecturers protesting under the College of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), marched from the new Science Complex where they earlier held an emergency congress and then moved to the provost’s office.

Adedayo Olokesusi, the COEASU chairman in the college, led the protest and addressed the principal officers at the Administrative Building where the march terminated.

NAIJ.com gathered that the lecturers also demanded the immediate payment of their seven months’ salary arrears, without which, they said, much hardship would be inflicted on them and their families.

COEASU in a seven-point communique signed by Olokesusi and the union’s secretary, Dare Owolabi, described the government’s act of deducting taxes directly from the monthly subvention to the school without the knowledge of the tax payers as “highly barbaric.”

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