By Melvin Onwubuke
The Federal Government has expended N177.4 billion in fulfillment of its promised wage award to civil servants in four months.
Wage award payment was one of the agreements reached with organized labour, which comprised of the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, as one of the ways of alleviating the domino effect of petrol subsidy removal.
According to The Punch, Govspen, a civic tech platform, which specializes in tracking and analyzing federal government expenditures, noted the government through the office of the Accountant General of the Federation, made a monthly payment of N44.3 billion to the IPPIS transaction account; a platform that stores payment details of all federal workers in Nigeria.
In summation, N177.4 billion was paid to 1,266,906 federal civil servants in four months by the federal government, and an additional N77.4 billion than the appropriated allocation in the 2023 supplementary budget.
The organized labour had recently protested the suspension of the wage award by the government, and threatened to down tool, if the government failed to restart the payment.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Labour, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha stated that the government would again resume the payment of the wage award following an ultimatum issued by the organized labour.
She said “I am here specifically to reassure you that we have not forgotten about the agreements between the government and trade unions. Thank God that you have confirmed that the Federal Government has started paying the N35,000 wage award and I can assure you that the payment is on course, and the outstanding will be paid within a short period.”
It is however reported that that, some civil servants had started receiving the wage award for November 2023.
Recall, president Bola Tinubu, had promised to give a N35,000 wage award to Federal Government workers for six months, it was however suspended after two months.
