IN his resolve to put an end to the lingering crisis of unpaid workers’
salaries in the country, especially in several states of the federation,
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved a comprehensive relief
package to end workers’ plight.
The president approved the sharing of about $2.1 billion (N413.7 billion),
sourced from recent Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) proceeds to the
federation account, between the states and the Federal Government.
Also, he directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to package special
intervention fund that would offer financing to the states, ranging
from between N250 billion to N300 billion.
This would be a soft loan available to states to access for the
purposes of paying backlog of salaries.
The president also directed that a debt relief programme, proposed by
the Debt Management Office (DMO), be put in place. This will help
states restructure commercial loans currently put at over N660 billion
and extend the life span of such loans, while reducing their debt-
servicing expenditures.
This third package, by extending the commercial loans of the states,
would, therefore, make available more funds to the state governments,
which otherwise would have been removed at source by the banks.
Informed government sources explained at the weekend that this
package, considered at the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting of
last week, was designed specifically for workers.
President Buhari, it was gathered, reviewed and approved the package
in his bid to intervene and alleviate the sufferings of workers, some of
who had not been paid for over 10 months.
When contacted, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity,
Mr Femi Adesina, confirmed that indeed a special package was on the
way for the workers, adding that the president was deeply concerned
about their plight.
In his speech while inaugurating the NEC last week, President Buhari had
asked the council, which is a constitutional advisory body to him, to, as a
matter of priority, consider how to liquidate arrears of unpaid salaries
across the country, a situation he observed had brought untold hardship
to the workers.
While the over $2 billion sourced from LNG proceeds to the federation
account would be shared among the states, using the revenue allocation
formula, the CBN would also make available the special intervention fund
to states and then negotiate the terms with individual states.
The packages that had been approved by President Buhari is expected
to go into effect this week, as the president was said to have directed
that release of the funds should be made as soon as possible, to
assuage the plight of thousands of Nigerian workers.
At the NEC meeting, the relief measures were extensively discussed
between the state governors and top officials of the Federal
Government, including the CBN governor and the permanent secretaries
from ministries of Finance and Petroleum Resources.
Other agencies actively involved in the process included the DMO and
officials from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
Media reports last month said no fewer than 12 of the 36 states of
the federation were facing difficult times as the salaries they owed
their workers was approximately well over N110 billion.
Osun, Rivers, Oyo, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi, Ondo, Plateau, Benue, and Bauchi
states are among affected states.
However, informed sources said the Finance Ministry and the CBN may
have pegged the amount needed to settle all the outstanding public
workers salaries at about N250 billion.
The package would also address cases of workers in the Federal
Government’s employ whose salaries had not been paid for months

Source:www.tribuneonlineng.com/workers-salaries-buhari-releases-n413bn.

Hmmmm we wey dem owe all 2014 arrears nko oooo I hope we include that federal section.

I thought the National treasury was"Virtually empty"