Civil servants urge National Assembly to ensure early release of salary arrears, pensions of workers

The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has urged the National Assembly to drop the idea of querying the legality of the bailout funds to the state governments but rather join hands with the federal government, the trade union movement, and other Nigerians to ensure that arrears of salaries and pensions were paid to affected workers and pensioners.

They argued that if the national assembly continued to harp on hindering the federal government from giving bailout funds to the state governments to settle arrears of salaries and pensions, the impression would be created that they were opposed to the welfare of members of their constituencies whose interest they were elected to pursue.

In a statement signed yesterday by the ASCSN National President, Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama and the Secretary-General, Comrade Alade Bashir Lawal, emphasized that money being given to state government by the federal government under the bailout arrangement is to be repaid and as such not dispensed as gratis.

The statement explained that information reaching the national secretariat of the union indicates that the lawmakers were hatching plans to scuttle efforts by the federal government to settle arrears of salaries and retirement benefits owed millions of workers and pensioners.

They said that in order to put the embarrassing and ugly situation behind, there was need for drop the idea of querying the legality of the bailout funds to the state governments.

“While we appreciate the oversight functions of the National Assembly in budget spending and other financial transactions of the federal government, we believe that in terms of bailout to state governments, members of the national assembly should use the instrument of their high offices to ensure that state governors deploy these funds to settle arrears of salaries of workers and retirement benefits of pensioners who, in the first instance, are members of their constituencies.”