3rd November, 2019
The 23 local government councils in Kaduna State have paid salaries for September and October 2019 in accordance with the new national minimum wage.
The Ministry of Local Government has also confirmed that the salary arrears the councils owe 8500 of the 39,000 primary school teachers will be paid over the next one week.
“All the 23 local government councils are complying with the new national minimum wage. This has formed the basis for the September and October 2019 salaries paid to their direct personnel, workers in the primary health care system and the 39,000 primary school teachers.
“Governor Nasir El-Rufai has also intervened to ensure prompt settlement of the salary arrears that the local government councils owe to about 8500 primary school teachers that were employed in the second batch of recruitment of new teachers.
“After briefings from the Ministry of Local Government and SUBEB, the state government has established that the 23 local government councils are owing second-batch teachers about N1.8bn in payments for January to May 2019. The Kaduna State Government has strongly expressed its dissatisfaction with the local government councils on this matter and has intervened decisively to solve it.
“To conclusively address the matter, the state government has guaranteed an overdraft from a commercial bank to enable all the councils to pay the outstanding sums to the affected teachers immediately. This ensures that the 8500 second-batch teachers will be paid their arrears next week. The state government wishes to apologise to the affected teachers for the undue delay.
“The Kaduna State Government will not allow any local government council to treat their obligations to teachers with levity. The necessary administrative adjustments to address this regrettable lapse are being taken. The state government is determined that the priority it accords to education must be reflected and shared at the local level as well.
“The state government has also directed an end to the dichotomy in the timing of salary payments at state and local government levels. Salary payments for state government and local government employees will henceforth be synchronised. The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Local Government will ensure that all public servants in the state are paid around the same time monthly henceforth,” the government said in a statement on Sunday.