The Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Aham Uko has given assurance that issues of outstanding salaries and pensions would be tackled head-on by his ministry in compliance with Governor Ikpeazu’s directive of prompt payment of worker’s salaries.
In statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Onyebuchi Ememanka, the Commissioner was said to have given the assurance in an interview with newsmen. He disclosed that of the 74 Ministries, Departments and Agencies, 60 have received their salaries for the month of October while the remaining 14 would receive theirs before the close of work on Monday.
The Finance Commissioner equally disclosed that Government has disbanded all salary committee including other firms managing salary payment as a result of incessant complaints of salary deduction by civil servants noting that the State Government would utilize the electronic salary payment platform which will pay civil servants and disburse subvention to Parastatals seamlessly with a view to reducing the incidences of manipulation, insertion of figures, falsification and salary leakages.
According to the Commissioner, “There won’t be any form of deductions whatsoever from anybody’s salaries and we are doing it straight from the parameters provided by the civil service commission as relates to salary payment.
“We intend to upload (salaries) electronically. From next month,there will be an auto- pay system. That way, salary payment will be seamless. We are going to utilize the salary payment platform to pay civil servants to reduce incidences of manipulation,insertion of figures, all forms of falsifications and grafts will be reduced pending when we formally conduct a comprehensive enumeration. We think by the exercise,we will still reduce some leakages.”
Dr. Uko while informing that three Parastatals including the College of Health Technology Aba, College of Education Technical Arochukwu and the Abia State Universal Basic Education Board would be included on the list of parastatals and MDAs whose subventions will become first line charge with effect from this month added that Abia State Polytechnic, having commenced the process of reform, would also receive regular and sustained monthly subventions from November this year noting that the recently disengaged staff from the polytechnic would be paid their entitlements beginning from next month until it’s final liquidation.
He maintained that Abia state University Uturu, Abia State University Teaching Hospital and Hospital Management Board would follow immediately after handling those first three institutions.
The Commissioner also stated that the Governor had ordered full implementation of the provisions of the Law on Universal Basic Education which makes it mandatory for Local Government Areas to pay salaries of teachers from Primary to Junior Secondary School while the State pays those of Senior Secondary School teachers.
Dr. Uko pleaded with Abia pensioners to exercise patience with the state government as it is working out modalities to ensure regular and prompt payment of pensions informing that the Secondary Education Management Board (SEMB) would start receiving regular and sustained payment of salaries from December.
He pointed out that the state government has constituted a committee to look into actual verification of pensioners in Abia, adding that the Ministry will soon embark on Comprehensive Physical Biometric Verification Exercise for all pensioners in the 17 LGAs of the state to get the authentic data of pensioners in the state government’s payroll.
The Commissioner assured that the state government is committed towards infrastructural development of the state, and said that Abia government is in collaboration with financial institutions such as NEXIM Bank, AFREXIM BANK and ADB in charting a fresh cause for the overall development of the state.
He said that emphasis would be on Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and blockage of revenue leakages, adding that in order to achieve that, MDAs would liase with the Board of Internal Revenue to raise IGR and would equally automate the entire system with a view to reducing human interface in revenue generation.
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