Niger State government has fulfilled its promise of repaying the 30 percent deducted from the salaries of civil servants in the state.
The state’s Commissioner for Finance, Ibrahim Balarabe, disclosed yesterday that government started the repayment on Monday to keep faith with the agreement reached with Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC.
He noted that government’s decision to slash salary of workers in June was a result of the sharp fall in the revenue of the state.
He said: “Since January this year, government had to secure overdraft to augment workers’ salaries and by June, the state had incurred N3 billion debt and this was a development that was inimical to the growth of the state.
“Government realised that by the end of the year, the state would have incurred over N10 billion to augment salary alone, at the detriment of other sectors begging for more attention.”
This, he said, forced the state to propose a formula of 70/30 percent of the monthly allocation for salaries and execution of capital projects, which labour rejected.
