‘N5.7bn Paris Club refund not enough to clear salaries, pensions’

By Sam Obinna Ibe Umuahia

Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Abia state, Comrade Uchenna Obigwe, noted that the Paris Club refund that accrued to the state would not be enough to settle outstanding salaries and pensions. He, however, gave the assurance that government had dedicated the entire tranche to the payment of salaries and pensions arrears. Obigwe, who disclosed this to Blueprint in Umuahia while reacting to the refund windfall, government had constituted a disbursement committee, including Labour, which met and took note of the actual indebtedness of salaries and pension arrears.

He commended the federal government for not attaching the second tranche of the money to any infrastructure projects, but only salary and pensions arrears. He lauded the resilience of Abia workers, adding that despite the low level of payment they had remained dedicated to their job. Obigwe blamed past governments for the heavy indebtedness of salaries and pensions owed workers in the state, regretting that the past leaders were unfair to workers “because during their regimes, Nigeria was better off and money was coming more than now.

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