The Benue Government says it will pay another five months salary arrears to civil servants in the state, adding that has already been captured in the 2025 budget.
The state Commissioner for Finance, Mr Michael Oglegba disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Makurdi on Wednesday.
Oglegba explained that the state government in 2024 paid five months arrears out of the total owed civil servants in the state.
He however said that the payment was pending the availability of funds, and that the arrears would be paid continuously until it was totally offset.
According to him, when this present administration came into office, we met a backlog of 48 months for pensioners and for civil servants.
”The payments were staggered, some were owed 12 months while some seven months.
“So far we have finished paying the backlog of Benue State University (BSU) and some MDAs but those that were owed longer than six and seven months we are paying off gradually.
“Sometimes we select ministries and pay while other times we select MDAs within a ministry and pay so at no time have we said that the government has cleared backlog of salaries arears.
“The payment is a continuous process, we currently owe College of Education like seven months which we will pay off; but pension is a bigger problem on its own.
“We came into office and discovered that pensioners for three years, were not captured in government data, we went ahead to capture them and the amount of pension arears grew from N400 million to N1 billion.
“So the money we saved up from civil servants revalidation exercise all went into payment of pensions and from the exercise, we were able to drive down the amount being spent on salaries monthly.”
The commissioner further clarified that payments of salaries were done in different categories.
”This falls under payment of core civil servants, ministries and agencies and support given to Benue State University (BSU), and Benue State University Teaching Hospital(BSUTH).
“We don’t describe BSU and BSUTH as civil servants but we support them monthly in order for them to pay their staff, aside from these two, we pay pension.
“Government implemented minimum wage for level seven to 17, salary was increased from N18,000 to N75,000 while those on level one to six was increased from N30,000 to N75,000 which is a huge leap for salaries in the state.” he said.
Oglegba added that the staff revalidation exercise was a continuous process and government was gearing up to start another one so as to fish out ghost workers in the state. (NAN)
