Government secures N9.5bn loan to pay salaries, pensions

The Plateau Government has secured N9.5 billion loan and used it for the payment of arrears of salaries and pensions.

The Director of Press Affairs, Mr Emmanuel Nanle, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos on Tuesday.

"We have secured a loan from a commercial bank to pay salaries and pensions owed workers by the last administration. We secured the loan in two instalments.

"The Gov. Smon Lalong administration inherited seven months salary arrears at N1.7 billon per month. We used the loan to pay three months salaries arrears and also paid pensions claims for two months totaling N1.2 billion,’’ he said.

Nanle said that workers were currently being paid another one month salary arrears, and blamed the delay on the ongoing staff verification exercise.

He, however, said that "only one month subvention’’ had been received by the Lalong administration since it came in May 29.He said that the second month's subvention was trapped by banks on account of loans government inherited from the previous administration.

The director said the issue was being sorted out so that the subvention would get into government account.

Nanle said that the N9.5 billion loan secured by the Lalong administration was being converted into a Federal Government bond to avoid a situation where future subventions would be equally be trapped.

He clarified that the state had not received any bailout from the Federal Government, and explained that what it got was statutory allocation from the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) which also went into the payment of salary arrears.