Abia State public servants being owed arrears of salaries would soon smile as the State Government has marshalled out plans to off set backlog of salary arrears owed by the immediate past administration in batches.
Abia state Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Mike Akpara who made this public while speaking with Newsmen in his office, announced that payments to workers in state-owned institutions of learning would begin in July with the goal of completing the payments by the end of the year.
Mr Akpara disclosed that the Dr Otti led administration inherited a debt of N16. 5 billion arrears owed workers in the state owned Institutions of learning.
While assuring that the arrears of salaries owed some workers in the state civil service would be addressed in the same manner, the Commissioner said the decision is to ensure that progress in other sectors of the economy is not hindered.
“For salary arrears,the Governor has set up machinery in motion to ensure that salary arrears would become a thing of the past.
“One thing I will promise is that it would be paid but it is not going to be in one sweep. We will do it in instalments, so that it does not hamper the progress of other sectors of the economy”, Akpara stated.
He named the state -owned institutions of higher learning being owed to include, Abia State University, Uturu, (ABSU), College of Education Technical , Arochukwu, College of Health Sciences, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba and Abia State University Teaching Hospital.
He faulted the financial management practices of the previous administration noting that subventions provided to institutions did not translate into timely salary payments which overtime resulted in months of unpaid wages.
“As a matter of fact, the past government owed Abia State Polytechnic -33 months, College of Education Arochukwu -22 months, Abia State University -11 months.
“Hospital Management Board was owed for several months. Theirs was humongous. We also have ASUBEB and SEMB the total amounts being owed to them is over N4billion”, Akpara explained.
He used the forum to restate that the State Government had already paid the salary arrears for April and May owed workers in ABSU.
While noting that “a worker deserves his wages”, Akpara emphasized the present administration’s commitment to completely change the narrative of owing workers salaries and addressing the long-standing issue of unpaid wages.
He argued that it was unfair for people to criticize Governor Alex Otti and call him names, but rather urged them to support the policies and programmes of the State Government.
He clarified that the present administration had not applied for any new loan facility since assumption of office but added that the previous administration began the process for requesting loan from Africa Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank adding that “we are completing what the past administration started, since government is continuum”.
