Nasarawa to pay December salary with loan, Maku seeks Buhari’s intervention

The Nasarawa State government has said it will obtain a loan to pay December salary of its workers.

Commissioner for Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs, Haruna Osegba, disclosed this while addressing newsmen in Akwanga at the weekend, saying the state government was compelled to borrow because of the delay from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.

Osegba said the government took the decision because payment of workers salaries was the administration’s topmost priority and therefore would go any lent to ensure salaries are paid even though the salary may not be paid in full.

However, the National Secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Labaran Maku, has pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura to pay workers their December salary in full.

Maku, who expressed worry over hardship workers in the state were facing due to non-payment of their salaries, noted that in spite of the presidential directive to ensure salaries of workers are paid from the last Paris Club refund, Al-Makura had insisted that he would not pay full salaries.

His words: “We are all aware of the directive from President Buhari to governors to ensure that workers salaries are paid before Christmas, Governor Almakura is insisting that he will not pay workers full salary when there is enough money from the last tranch of the Paris Club refund that has just been paid to the states.

“If other states like Gombe and the rest are paying full salaries to workers why can’t Nasarawa pay? I gathered that pensioners are being paid on percentages after owing them for more than a year.”

Maku, who was the governorship candidate in the 2015 general election, has therefore, urged President Buhari to advise Al-Makura to have mercy on the workers in the state by paying their full salary before the Christmas.