In a move to clear salary arrears owed by some local councils in Edo State, the Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) has resolved to set aside 50 per cent of their monthly revenue to offset such arrears after payment of monthly salaries.
Chairman, Oredo Local Government Area, Hon. Jenkins Osunde, said this at the end of the monthly JAAC meeting presided over by the Edo State Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, at Government House, in Benin City.
Osunde said after the payment of monthly salaries, 50 per cent of the revenue left will be used to clear salary arrears by LGAs that are still owing their workers’ salary arrears.
He further said that the total gross allocation that accrued to the 18 LGAs from the federation account for the month of July was N3,168, 456, 876. 47k billion while net allocation to the councils was N1, 464,888,502.66k.
He explained that the total deductions from LGAs for the month was N1.703,568,371, while total amount transferable to the LGAs stood at N1,449,046,218.28k.
According to him, teachers’ and non-teachers’ salaries gulped N923, 631,773.74k; primary school teachers N881,350,071.05k; non-teachers’ salary stood at 42,596,702.69k, while pension fund contribution was N423, 529, 894.
Osunde noted that payment for pension arrears gulped N100 million while Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by LGAs in the month of July was N179, 530, 634.
He explained that the about 8.7 per cent decrease in the IGR for July when compared with the N196,590,479.14k realised in the previous month was due to poor weather conditions and public holidays.
Osunde added that the Airtel internet connectivity that would drive the new revenue collection system was being installed across the 18 councils of the state.
According to the Oredo council chairman, N8,250,000 from the money that accrued to the councils was set aside for the Ward Development Committees.
He said projects that are executed at the ward level are supervised by the Ward Development Committees, noting that the N8.25 million was to enable the committees carry out their functions.
