By Priscilla Campbell,
Minna
The Niger State government has augmented the payments of salaries of local government staff to the tune of N600 million.
This is in line with the directives of the National Finance Intelligent Unit (NFIU) on direct allocation to Council areas in the country.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Akilu Musa Kuta, made the disclosure on Wednesday.
He said that the grassroots areas in the state were indebted to their workers.
He disclosed that “The resources that come to Niger State are dwindling and obviously there are instances that we may not have been able to pay, but we still have our ways of augmenting if such happens.
“We don’t have issues with the payment of salaries as it affects local government area workers. Since the inception of this administration, I don’t think we have defaulted.”
He said that the local government areas that were augmented include Chanchaga, Bida, Suleja, Kontagora, Mokwa, Paikoro, Shiroro, Lavun, Lapai, Agaie, Paikoro, Rijau, as well as Tafa.
“Sometimes we have high and or low inflow of allocation. But on the average, we augment for these local government areas within the range of between N500 million and N600 million monthly. And we do take overdraft to overcome these obstacles.”
It would be recalled some few weeks ago, the Niger State chapter of the National Union of Local Government Employee (NULGE) recently raised concern that 13 out of 25 councils could not pay their workers’ salaries.
The union through its Chairman, Alhaji Abdulkareem Lafene, stated that the development was due to the implementation of the NFIU on direct allocation to local governments, adding that the implementation of the policy has already achieved close to 90% success in the state.