The All Progressives Congress, APC, Enugu State chapter, Saturday slammed the Enugu State Government over its alleged diversion of bail-out fund accessed from the federal government on behalf of the State workers.
A recent report by Vanguard showed that most of the 23 states that got bail out cash from the federal government for the settlement of arrears of workers’ salaries and emoluments, diverted the funds for other purposes, thereby defeating the purpose of the government’s effort to provide succour for the workers.
According to the report, a comprehensive analysis carried out by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission, ICPC, in conjunction with the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, revealed that many of the states deliberately lied that they were owing their workers huge debts when the reverse was the case.
A major feature of the analysis released by the ICPC and signed by its Commissioner for Public Enlightenment, indicated that many of the states failed to apply the amount received from the federal government to settle their indebtedness to their workers, leaving them enmeshed in huge arrears of salaries to the staff despite collecting the bailout cash.
A breakdown of the analysis indicates that out of the 27 states that applied for the fund, only 23 had been paid by the Central Bank of Nigeria as at the end of December 2015.
On the part of Enugu State, the report showed that while it was granted N10,174,238,681.19 as bailout fund as at 16th November 2015, analysis of the documents submitted revealed that, the State disbursed N5, 967,238,681.19 from the bailout fund to settle domestic debts and claimed that funds for the payments of Staff salaries and emoluments was not yet accessed.
In a reaction to the development, the APC through its state publicity secretary, Mrs. Kate Offor said the action of the State government was condemnable, stressing that the government should have used the money to pay workers’ salaries.
She maintained that the government was insensitive to the plight of the workers, when it knew its position as the highest employer of labour.
“What is more domestic than debts owed workers and pensioners? If workers are paid when due, workers will be happy and the economy of the state will flow as people will have more money in their pockets and go to buy
“The action of the Peoples Democratic Party led government in Enugu State is bad. Money meant for the payment of workers’ salaries should not be diverted; that’s why the APC is ready to give Enugu people an alternative in 2019”, she quipped.
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