- Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed's request for a N4bn loan has been approved by the Kwara state House of Assembly
- Ahmed in a request to the House has explained that the fund will be for the payment of the pension and salaries of local government workers
- However, the House urged the state government to device means to pay salary arrears without future recourse to loan facility
The Kwara House of Assembly has approved the state government to access a term loan facility of N4 billion for the payment of accrued salaries and pensions of the 16 local government councils in the state.
The House in its recent session approved the loan facility after a message from Abdulfatah Ahmed, the state governor, read by the speaker, Ali Ahmad, seeking the approval of the legislature.
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There had been crisis of non-payment of salaries to workers in the employ of local government councils in the state which has been blamed mainly on shortfall in the federal allocation to the councils.
Many of the 16 councils in the state owe their workers arrears of salaries of different months from two to eight.
Ahmad inquired from the state Joint Allocation Account Committee (JAAC) to furnish the House on how the fund would be disbursed to ensure that the loan was entirely used for the purpose it was approved
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Other members who spoke on the request said though the practice of obtaining loan to pay salary arrears was against financial regulation, for the time, it will improve the wellbeing of affected workers. However, they advised the governor to device means of paying the balance of N7.7 billion required to clear salary arrears without recourse to loan facility from the bank.
Earlier, NAIJ.com reported that House had approved the request of Ahmed to obtain N5 billion from CBN through ECA secured concessionary loan from Sterling Bank.
The loan was requested to offset backlog salaries owed workers of the state-owned tertiary institution who had embarked on an indefinite strike.
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Source: Naija.ng