Bauchi yet to receive bail-out fund, says Abubakar

GOVERNOR Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi State has said that he was yet to receive President Muhammadu Buhari’s bail-out fund aimed to support governors in paying the backlog of salary arrears owed their workers.

Abubakar, who stated this in Bauchi at the weekend during a media broadcast, further reassured the people that the state would soon access the fund after due process must have been followed.

He said: “Information just reaching me from the state accountant-general is that approval has finally left the Federal Ministry of Finance to Zenith Bank Corporate office towards accessing the bailout fund.”

The governor said that his administration’s 100 days in office has focused on general governance in evaluation of posturing and deliberate action for the yearning and aspirations of people in line with APC blueprints, adding that government had through assets recovery committee recovered huge numbers of vehicles, generating sets and transformers frittered away by the officials of previous government, including plots of lands

He said that the committee had also discovered N2 billion allegedly collected as loan to service small-scale enterprises that was equally squandered.

“I wish to announce the fruitful efforts in locating the state-owned ‘Embraer 145’ aircraft in Morocco and will soon land at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa International Airport”, said the governor.

On civil service matter, Abubakar reiterated that there has been a labour-friendly administration having tackled all the challenges leading to incessant strikes in the state.

He gave assurance that those unpaid teachers of their backlog salary arrears would soon be paid after a verification exercise.