President Muhammadu Buhari has said most states are now free of accumulated salary arrears, following the bailout the Federal Government gave them.
He recalled that when his administration came on board in 2015, it inherited huge arrears of unpaid salaries and allowances of civil servants and public sector workers, especially those in state, local and municipal governments.
The President spoke yesterday in Abuja at the fourth ordinary congress of International Trade Union Confederation Africa (ITUC-Africa).
His address was delivered by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, who was represented by the Permanent secretary, General Services Office of the SGF, Olusegun Olakunle.
President Buhari said his administration followed the bailout by energising the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) to offset the pension indebtedness owed by successive governments.
He said: “When this administration came on board in 2015, we inherited huge arrears of unpaid salary and allowances of civil servants and public sector workers, especially those working for sub-national and local or municipal governments. We asked our state governors: ‘How do you manage to sleep at night when you are owing workers?’
“We followed up on this concern by advancing credit facilities to our sub-national governments to enable them offset huge salary arrears. Today, we can confidently say that most states in Nigeria are free of accumulated arrears of salary indebtedness.”
