Buhari President approves N400bn for workers’ salaries

The sum will be utilized as part of a three-step relief package to ensure that the owed wages are paid to workers across the country.




President Muhammadu Buhari has reportedly approved a N400bn package to aid in the payment of workers’ salaries across the country.

The sum will be utilized as part of a three-step relief package to ensure that the owed wages are paid.“In his resolve to put an end to the lingering crisis of unpaid workers’ salaries in the country especially in many states, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved a comprehensive relief package designed to save the situation,” a source told The Nation.“Specifically, the President has okayed a three-pronged relief package that will end the workers’ plight. The packages that have now been approved by President Buhari is expected to go into effect this week as the President is said to have directed that release of the funds should be made as soon as possible to assuage the plight of thousands of Nigerian workers in the federal and state governments,” he added.




The steps are:

1. The sharing of about $2.1b (N413.7bn) in fresh allocation between the states and the federal government. The money is sourced from recent LNG proceeds to the federation account, and its release okayed by the president;
2. A Central Bank-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, ranging from between N250bn to N300bn. This would be a soft loan available to states to access for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries;
3. And a debt relief program proposed by the Debt Management Office, DMO, which will help states restructure their commercial loans currently put at over N660bn, and extend the life span of such loans while reducing their debt-servicing expenditures.