$4b release to States, Benue gets N91b

Senator Dino Melaye

Chairman Senate Committee on FCT, Senator Dino Melaye, has called on State governors owing civil servants’ salaries to pay now, having received huge amounts from the Federal Government.
The controversial Senator representing Kogi West mentioned Osun state governor, Rauf Aregbesola’s name, while charging him to pay civil servants their salaries in full both at the state and LG levels to ameliorate the suffering of the people as directed by the federal government.
Giving details on how the federal government allocated the funds to states, Melaye in a Facebook post charged governors to use the money judiciously.
He wrote, “The thirty-six states of the Federation collectively received over $4bn being the over-deductions on Paris and London Club Loans on the accounts of State and Local Governments from February 1990 to March 2002. Nasarawa State received over N68bn, CBN confirmed.
“Details from both the CBN and Federal Ministry of Finance headquarters showed neighbouring States, Kogi received about N80bn, Plateau and Benue got N75bn and N91bn respectively. Meanwhile, the states of Osun and Edo got N84bn and N82bn respectively.
“The monies were credited into the respective accounts of all the 36 states of Federation on Monday 21st November, 2016.
“While that of Plateau State was paid into a UBA account (1019894291), that of Nasarawa State as confirmed from Govt. House was paid into Fidelity and Skye Banks for State Govt. (N46bn) and Local Govts. (N22bn) respectively.
“Regrettably, all the 36 states governors don’t want the general public especially civil society organizations (CSOs) to know about these monies, hence the secrecy of the payment.
“However, approving the disbursement of this sum of over $4b to all the 36 states in naira, President Muhammadu Buhari directed the States Governors to use the monies to settle the civil servants salaries and welfares.
“We hope with this money, Gov. Aregbesola will pay civil servants their salaries in full both at the state and LGAs levels to ameliorate the suffering of our people as directed by the federal government.
“We are calling on EFCC and ICPC to monitor the spending of these huge $4b disbursed to the 36 states governors especially that of Osun State.”
Meanwhile States like Enugu and Nasarawa have annoced plans to clear arrears of salaries owed workers before Christmas next month.
Read detail in Daily Post