SHAWWAL 18, 1429 A.H.
THURSDAY OCTOBER 16 2008
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Yar’adua orders monetisation arrears paid
President Umaru Musa Yar’adua has directed that the arrears of monetisation to federal parastatal organisations be paid.
Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmad, The Permanent Secretary in the office of the SGF, made the disclosure to the Senate Committee on Information and Media yesterday in Abuja during a session on the matter.
He said the president directed that the figure be captured in the 2009 budget to facilitate payment in the new year.
Baba-Ahmad said the president agreed with the figures arrived at by the committee which negotiated the arrears with relevant labour unions in the affected organisations.
According to him, the figures are to be scrutinised to ensure that the correct amounts are paid to beneficiaries.
He told the committee that 255 agencies had submitted their computations while 96 had yet to do so.
Baba-Ahmad said the federal fovernment received a request of a total of N88 billion for payment of the arrears, but that was pruned to about N74 billion after initial scrutiny.
Sen. Ayogu Eze, the chairman of the committee thanked the federal government and labour unions for showing maturity in handling the matter.
He also commended them for allowing the Senate to midwife the process which led to the resolution of the matter.
Also speaking, the President of RATTAWU, Mr. Yemisi Bamgbose commended Yar’adua for agreeing to pay the arrears.
He said union leaders did not believe in creating problems but finding solution to them, pointing out that they would cooperate with the government to see the matter to a logical conclusion.
Bamgbose also thanked the SGF for playing a fatherly role in ensuring a speedy resolution of the dispute.
He, however, appealed to the government to capture the arrears in the 2008 supplementary budget rather than wait for the 2009 appropriation.
In another development, the federal government yesterday started the payment of final benefits to 200 staff, the last batch of workers who were disengaged from parastatal agencies, the Bureau of Public Service Reform said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation has deployed staff to five designated centres across the country to effect the payments.
The disengaged staff, who would be identified by designated officials of their respective agencies, would be paid at centres nearest to their state of origin.
Nineteen disengaged staff would be paid in Abuja , 41 in Akure, 68 in Kaduna, 71 in Enugu and one in Lagos .
A letter written to all the agencies by Mrs H. B. Auta, on behalf of the Bureau’s Permanent Secretary, directed parastatal agencies to send representatives to the five centres to identify the disengaged officers before they were paid.
