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Not less than ten states are paying wage award to their workers, findings have shown.
Lagos, Ekiti, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ondo, Enugu, Ebonyi, Adamawa and Jigawa are part of the 15 states surveyed by our correspondents yesterday, reports The Nation.
Niger State yesterday approved payment of N20,000 each to its workers.
Following the withdrawal of petrol subsidy and the attendant pains, the federal government among other cushioning policies, began payment of N35,000 wage award to its workers. It has paid for five months.
On Monday, the president admonished governors, who had yet to pay the wage award to start, pending the conclusion of work by the Tripartite Committee on New Minimum Wage.
He made the appeal while inaugurating agricultural programmes initiated by Governor Umaru Bago in Minna, Niger State.
Since the removal of petrol subsidy, federal revenue has grown significantly. Last month, all the federating units shared over N1trillion.
Bago announced yesterday that workers in his state would from this month get N20,000 as wage award.
His Ogun counterpart, Dapo Abiodun, whose administration has been paying N10,000 monthly award to civil servants, added primary and secondary school pupils to the list.
About 100,000 indigent pupils are to receive N10,000 each from the government.
Payment of N50,000 to 20,000 students who are indigenes of the state in tertiary institutions will be completed this week.
Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, who announced the plan in Abeokuta, said it was one of the strategies by Governor Abiodun to provide succour to parents in the face of biting economic challenges.
He said: “Given the economic realities in the country, the governor decided to provide succour to the people of the state using a multiplicity of approaches to achieve this.
“He believes that a strategy never used by any government is the health and education sectors. Through the education sector, you can truly reach out to those who need the palliative.
“We have over 2, 000 primary and secondary schools in all the four divisions of the state, and 100,000 learners in these schools would receive N10,00 each.
“As we meet and give the parents the governor’s message, they are receiving the alert for payment.
“The governor’s gesture is to support the parents in meeting their children’s needs.
“In the tertiary level, we are giving out N50,000 to each student. We have captured 50,000 students from all the tertiary institutions whose details have been submitted to us after we wrote to their vice-chancellors, rectors and provosts.
“We are paying directly to the students to ensure that the money gets to them.
“We started payment last week, and we have paid over 10,000 students, and before the end of this week, we will have paid 20,000.”
Lagos and Ondo states pay the highest wage award of N35,000 to their workers while Oyo and Enugu are second with N25,000.
Ekiti and Osun pay N15,000 while Jigawa, Adamawa and Ebonyi pay N10,000.
Some of the states have also extended the payment to local government employees and pensioners.
