Kwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed
The
Kwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, has said the state
government used its share of N3.5bn from the $2.1bn Nigeria Liquefied
Natural Gas Company Limited dividend recently received from the Federal
Government to pay the salaries of its workers.
He stated that the state government got
N2.1bn, while the 16 local government councils in the state received
N1.4bn from the N3.5bn, adding that though the NLNG dividend was not
strictly meant for salary payment, the money was used for that purpose
by the state and local governments.
According to him, the government took the
decision because of the priority it attaches to the welfare of the
workers, human capital development and capacity building as well as the
need to continue to promote industrial peace in the state.
Speaking
in Ilorin on Tuesday on the sidelines of the state government’s public
enlightenment campaign tagged: ‘The governor explains’, Ahmed said the
state government did not divert the money.
Ahmed said, “The Kwara State Government
collected N2.1bn and the LGs collected N1.4bn. The monies have gone into
the payment of salaries at both levels, which, of course, were not
enough.
“The federal allocation has dropped since
September last year. But we had consistently paid salaries from then up
till April 2015. We had some money that we set aside, which we were
using to augment the federal allocation each time it fell short. Up till
last month, the Federation Account came short of what we used to
collect.”
The governor stated that the government
would not retrench its workers though it would likely trim some
ministries to ensure efficiency.
He added that the streamlining of the
ministries was intended to bring down cost, achieve efficiency and
improve compliance level, noting that the exercise would not lead to job
losses because the government was preoccupied with coming up with
strategies that would create more jobs for the unemployed people in the
state.
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