NLC strike: Salary payment may be disrupted if… – AGF

In spite of the commencement of the indefinite strike action embarked  on by the organised labour, the Accountant-General of the Federation(AGF), Mr Ahmed Idris, has restated government’s commitment to pay salaries of all workers on the Federal Government payroll.

The AGF however noted that salaries payment may be disrupted if staff who should process the salaries are not allowed access to their offices.

A statement from the Office of the AGF quoted Mr. Idris saying “we have a standing order from Mr. President to pay workers salaries from the 25th of every month, which we have striven hard to fulfill to Nigerian workers and this month will not be an exception.”

However “the payment of salaries cannot be achieved in an atmosphere where the critical stakeholders are not allowed access to their offices.”

“I must explain that salary payment involves a number of processes that do not begin and end with the OAGF. There are other critical stakeholders  like the cash management department in Ministry of Finance and others who are supposed to do their beats before we can finalise”, Mr Idris said.

“On coming to the office this morning, we met the gates of the office locked and wondered how we can keep this promise if we are being locked out of the office.  After speaking with the local arm of the Labour in the office on the need to pay salaries, they conceded to allow me and some of my staff in but the gates are still locked. I therefore appeal to labour to open our gates so that we can have unhindered access to meet their needs” he noted.

The AGF further appealed to the national leadership of the organised labour to reconsider their stand on the on-going strike saying that the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari more than ever has demonstrated high commitment towards meeting the welfare of the Nigerian workers.

He therefore enumerated some of the very salient actions the present  government has so far undertaken to improve the welfare of the workers to include; the payment of  over N50 billion for Promotion  arrears from 2012 – 2016; the approval of another N60bn for the payment of salary arrears with effect from 2011 -2016; the President’s recent approval of N22.68 Billion for the payment of pension Arrears to the retirees of the defunct Nigeria Airways workers which has been outstanding for over 14 years, and the Federal Government policy of Non-retrenchment of worker, among others.