Imo state is to begin paying arrears to pensioners on Thursday.
Governor Emeka Ihedioha, who disclosed this at a stakeholders meeting with the Nigerian Union of pensioners, (NUP), members of the organised labour and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Owerri, said that the verification exercise embarked by the government to ascertain the actual number and amount to be paid to the pensioners has been completed.
He said that the consultants handling the exercise have told him that integration of the collated data with the banks will be done between Monday and Tuesday, while the report will be presented to, and ratified, at the State Executive Council Meeting on Wednesday, adding, “Thereafter the alert will start hitting your phones.”
The governor said that he has been able to set aside over N822 million, based on the computed figures, for the payment of the pension arrears.
Ihedioha, who decried the low level of internally generated revenue in the state, however expressed delight that with the introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) System, there had been a progressive rise in IGR from N241 million in June to N432 million in July, N635 N874 million in August and N874 million in September.
The governor expressed worry at the huge salary bill of civil servants in the state, stressing that the state got last month as state allocation from Abuja is N4.5 billion and salary alone gulped N2.252 billion, which is 55 per cent of the allocation while pensions will take 17 per cent.
He warned that unproductive civil servants will be sacked, while urging them to sit up and increase the state IGR.
