After series of negotiations, Kogi state government and the organised labour in the state have agreed on the payment of eighty percent salary to state government workers for the month of April.
The meeting also settled for 35% April salary for local government workers and teachers.
The organised labour led by the State Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Onuh Edoka, had insisted that nothing short of full salary for workers would be acceptable in a meeting that ended in a deadlock with the government team in government house Lokoja on Monday.
The meeting between labour and government was occasioned by plans by the state government to pay fifty percent salaries to workers, a proposal the labour rejected, prompting government to shift ground, pleading to pay seventy five percent.
However, at a resumed meeting on Tuesday, the parties agreed on 80% pay owing to glaring constraints faced by the state government.
The government team explained to the labour leaders that the slash in the salary of workers was hinged on the state’s inability to draw overdraft to pay salary, a practice that has been on for some months. The indebtedness over time, according to the government team runs into N4.8 billion, a situation that led to the bank mopping up the March 2020 statutory allocation paid in April.
Also, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CBN’s new guidelines does not permit the granting of huge overdraft, reason why it is difficult for the bank to give same gesture to the state government as enjoyed in the past.
