The end is in sight for the ongoing strike action of workers of Kwara State-owned tertiary institutions as the State House of Assembly yesterday gave the state government the go-ahead to access a N5billion CBN, ECA secured concessionary loan from Sterling Bank to clear the salary arrears of the workers and their colleagues in government parastatals.
The approval followed a message from Governor AbdulFatah Ahmed which was read by the speaker, Dr. Ali Ahmad on the floor of the House yesterday.
Workers of the affected institutions had on Monday commenced an indefinite strike action to press home their demands for the payment of five months salary arrears owed them by the government.
This development came just as government said it has not collected any bailout fund for the payment of arrears of salaries of staff of Local Government and the teachers of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) from the federal government.
It said rather, the N4.32billion loan it secured from the Central Bank of Nigeria bailout fund was meant to offset the arrears of salaries of May and August for core civil servants in the state.
The permanent secretary, Ministry of Finance, Mr Benjamin Fatigun, made this clarification in Ilorin when he appeared before the House of Assembly Committee on Finance and Appropriation yesterday.
Fatigun explained that though the State House of Assembly had given approval to the state government to access the bailout fund from the federal government to clear the outstanding salary arrears of workers of LGs and SUBEB, the CBN up till this week had not released the N5billion bailout fund.
