From TOM GARBA, Yola
THE government of Adamawa state has reinstated its resolve to sustain the payment of N18,000 minimum wage to civil servants in the state despite the economic crunch caused by dwindling oil revenue.
Making the remark during a joint Press Conference attended by Adamawa state Commissioners of Finance, Information and Health, Mallam Ahmed Sajoh the state’s Commissioner for Information noted that the state government is fully committed to the welfare of the state’s civil servants and will never envisage reducing their pay package.
On the issue of a N500 million earmarked for a social security scheme popularly called Bindow for Social Change commissioner of information noted that the programme is aimed at creating job opportunities for the teeming youth population in the state.
He noted that despite the fact that the funds is channeled through the office of the SSG, the money is still in the state coffers and not in the personal account of the SSG.
In his remark, the commissioner of finance, Mahmud Sali noted that it became imperative to address the press in the face of delay in the payment of backlog of salaries of primary health workers in the state.
He noted that part of the delay was due to a verification exercise being conducted following which a number of ghost workers were detected saving the state more than N42 million Naira in the sector alone.
Sali noted that with the completion of the exercise, the payment of backlog of salary areas to the health workers will commence this week.
He also expresses dismay that upon the conduct of the screening exercise in the said school, only 20 teachers were confirmed to be working in the school.
He added that the screening of teachers in the state is also yielding positive results noting that many ghost workers are being unearthed from the exercise noting that in a primary school consisting of only 5 classroom blocks a total of 185 teachers were on the payroll of the school as teachers.
Reiterating the commitment of the state government to commence payment of the health workers salary, the State commissioner of Health, Fatima Atiku Abubakar noted that the state government is aware of the predicaments of the health workers and very soon all outstanding issues relating to them would be redressed