Mr Ahmed Idris, the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), says over N37 billion has been saved from misapplications, paddings, mistakes and non-compliance by MDAs to the agreed template of promotion arrears payment.
A statement by Mr Oise Johnson, Head, Press and Publicity, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF), made this known in Abuja.
According to him, Idris gave the figure when he received the National Executive of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) on a courtesy visit.
Idris said that following President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive that N10 billion be set aside monthly, commencing from May 2017 to offset backlog of promotion arrears, the OAGF inaugurated an in-house committee to verify Ministries, Departments and Agencies’ (MDAs) claims and submissions.
“So far, the committee has paid out the sum of N42 billion out of the N55 billion released, leaving an outstanding of N13 billion in cash while a total of N35 billion is yet to be released to the office.”
He, however, reassured civil servants of the commitment of the OAGF in line with the president’s directives to the continued payment of promotion arrears owed federal civil servants.
He also promised to bring the concerns of the association to the notice of the Minister of Finance and dialogue with the Director-General, Budget Office, to ensure that government continued to keep its part of the agreement reached with the association to ensure industrial harmony.
Idris commended the leadership of the association for its understanding and support in the implementation of government plans and programmes, adding that without industrial harmony, no meaningful development could be achieved.
Mr Bola Innocent, the National Vice President, ASCSN, said the visit was necessitated by recent developments from the payment of outstanding promotion, salaries and other arrears owed civil servants in the public service.
He said that the association understood that concern raised by the director-general of Budget Office was leading to delay in the continued payment of the arrears.
He, however, said that failure of the government to continue to honour the agreement signed in May 2017 might lead to industrial unrest.
The Federal Government had in 2017, signed an agreement with the ASCSN to ensure that arrears of payments to civil servants were paid and the backlog cleared.
