From: Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin-Kebbi
The Kebbi State Government says it received N5.9 billion Paris refund from the Federal Government, while pensioners in the state have been paid 40 percent of their entitlements.Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Ibrahim Muhammed Augie, confirmed this while speaking with journalists, in Birnin-Kebbi.Augie, who disclosed that about N7 billion had been paid so far to settle pensioners in the state, said that the state deducts an average of N1.5 billion monthly to pay salaries of 19,133 civil servants out of the N2.7 billion received from the Federal Government monthly. He declared that that was a major burden.
According to him, “We received the first trenches and instruction given to us by federal government is to use it to settle salaries arrears and infrastructure development. So,essentially,the first trenches went to gratuities and pension arrears. The other half went to the infrastructure development.
“The current one is going to face the same thing. About N5.9 billion we received. We devoted largest to the infrastructure development and pensioners gratuities. “.
He confirmed that all the pensioners had gotten 40 percent of their gratuities.
While speaking of implementation of Treasury Single Account ( TSA) of Federal Government, Augie said that the state had just complied on July 2017 due to over N28 billion liabilities inherited by the present administration.
He also disclosed that about N56 million were recovered from over 1,000 dormant accounts of MDAs and they were asked to closed it and forward the remnants to the approximate accounts.
He added that as a result of closure of such illegal accounts,the IGR of the state had increased from N270 million to N800 million stressed that the state government is seeking for avenue to increases taxes and revenue generation through Internal Board of Revenue.
” In terms of expenditure,efforts have been made by the present administration to ensure that only priority, programmes or activities were approved by Government for payments. In this regards the total sum of N132,520,076,767.00 has been expended within the period under review.
“I am happy to report that the scheme has finally taken- PFF on the 1st of June,2017 with UBA PLC ad the TSA MAIN Hosting Bank and Klug and Heimer as the Consultant driving the process.
” While teething problems are currently been resolved, the TSA is expected to increase collection of internal generated revenue,block leakages and strengthen transparency and accountability.”