“Salary arrears of workers will be settled in a few weeks”, were the words of Plateau state Governor, Barr. Simon Lalong as he addressed Plateau State Association (PSA), UK members and ViewPointNigeria in London.

Lalong explained that he inherited several months of salary arrears from the past administration and that the state was so indebted it couldn’t afford to pay the N13 billion it owed its workers.

He said, given the near desperate financial situation, he sought audience with President Buhari and discussed the matter with him, and that the president approved a N10 billion special bailout fund to assist in clearing the salary backlog.

He however said, that of the N10 billion approved, CBN only released N5 billion and therefore only a fraction of the salary arrears were cleared at the end of last year – with up to 5 months of salaries still outstanding.

Speaking further, he confirmed that with only N5 billion of the payment received, he reached out to the CBN governor to understand why part of the payments were held back and that with the support of Mr President, he was able to have the remainder of the balanced approved two weeks ago (i.e., just before president Buhari’s trip to the UK).

With the approval, Lalong confirmed that the state should be able to settle most of the outstanding salary arrears over the coming weeks.

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Salary arrears of workers to be settled in a few weeks – Lalong