Abia committee concludes Paris Fund disbursement plan

The committee set up by the Abia State Government to ensure equitable distribution of the over N5 billion second tranche of the London-Paris Club loan allotted to the state by the federal government has concluded arrangements on how the money would be shared among workers in the state.

A member of the committee and state chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Chief Uchenna Obigwe in an interview with our correspondent in Aba stated that the committee concluded its work on Monday.

Obigwe, who thanked the state governor Okezie Ikpeazu for allowing the committee to do their work without any interference, stated that the committee did their job without any bias.

Giving a breakdown on how the money was shared amongst workers in the state, the NLC chairman stated that the sum of N220m was giving to Abia State Polytechnic, N2,279,045,845.70  was for MDA’s, N792m for the payment of two months arrears for State Pensioners, N751m for payment of Pensioners at the Local Government, Secondary School Teachers got N912m  for 3months salary arrears, Abia College of Education Technical, Arochukwu got N24m for one month arrears of salary out of 7 months that they were being owed.

Others include Hospital Management Board got N130m (for two months salary), Abia State University Teaching Hospital (ABUSTH) got N290m, Abia State University got N200m, N864m was for the payment of 2months arrears of salary of Primary School Teachers, N1,796,723,533.76 was payment for 2months arrears of Local Government Staff.

College of Health Science, Aba and Abia State Universal Basic Education Board got N10M and N22m each. Retirees from ABSUTH got N10m as well. The sum of N17.396m was for the severance allowance of Judges while Abia Newspapers got N6.3m to pay one month salary.

Staffers of Community Social Development Project (CSDP) and Project Implementation Unit (PIU) which the NLC chair said were not government scheduled establishments got N14m and N480m respectively while the sum of N285,788,293.57 was 5% provision for consultancy.

The State Labour chairman further added that Abia State Polytechnic Aba has as at the time of the interview gotten alert of N90m for one month subvention and promised that he would ensure that the institution gets its money in full.

“FAC may drop before Friday and it is expected that workers would get their salaries as soon as the FAC drops. The only people that may have to wait for a while is Secondary Education Management Board (SEMB) staff because of the ongoing verification exercise being carried out by the state government and soon as they (SEMB) are done with the verification, at least by next week, they will get their salaries. That’s if everything should go as planned,” Obigwe explained.

©The Nation