Nasarawa Borrows Extreme Sum Of Money To Pay Salaries
The Nasarawa state government has gone to great lengths to secure a N500 million bank facility to pay February salary of workers in the state.
The need to borrow, Leadership Newspaper reports is due to the shortfall in statutory allocation from federation account accruing to Nasarawa state due to the downward plunge in the global oil market.
Mr. Mohammed Musa Danazumi, commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, made this known in Lafia on Monday while addressing the press at the Government House on Shendam road.
He said the situation is compounded by the non-release of SURE-P funds since December 2014 which was hitherto used in augmenting shortfalls of local government salaries.
READ ALSO: Fashola Reveals Cause Of Unemployment
“On account of the downturn in the global price of oil, statutory allocation to states and local governments further dropped, while no releases were made in respect of SURE-P since December, 2014″.
The commisioner explained further that the decision to obtain a bank facility was reached after a stakeholdrs meeting comprising the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) and three other sister bodies.
“The committee agreed that the banks be approached for temporary overdraft (TOD) to augment the shortfall to enable the payment of February, 2015 salaries of local government employees”.
He added that the state government needed N2.2b to pay all categories of local councils, Development Areas employees including primary school teachers in the state.
“Sadly, only the the sum of N1,665, 548, 782.13 was received from the federation account as allocation to the thirteen local government areas of the state. This implies a shortfall of N522, 319, 973.96 in wage bill for February, 2015″.
READ ALSO: Why FCT Minister’s Nephew Kidnapped His Own 3-Year-Old Brother
He further assured state and local government civil servants in the state that every worker would be paid their salaries before the end of the week, stressing that this is the first time, since assumption of office of Governor Umaru Tanko Almakura, that government had to owe workers their salaries into another month
The reason for the shortfall in statutory allocation from federation account and hence borrowing by the state can be attributed to the federal governmentslashing their budgets due to the economic downturn.
It will also be recalled that National Assembly slashed its overhead budget by 25 percent to help free up more funds for capital expenditure.
Source: Legit.ng
