Minister of the Federal Capital Territory FCT, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has commenced the payment of the new National Minimum Wage of N30, 000 to staff of the FCT Administration. This was as the minister also cleared the N4 billion arrears of the minimum wage from April 2019.
Speaking also, The Director, FCT Treasury Department, Ismaila Ishiaku disclosed this while speaking with journalists Today 28th January 2020 in Abuja. The Director who said January salaries will hit the accounts of workers this week noted that the move by the FCT administration to pay minimum wage arrears at once, was to enable workers start the year on a financially stable note.
“The minimum wage was to start, effective from April 2019 but its implementation began in December, and because the directive from the federal government came after we in the FCT had already paid the December salary (because we pay very early), we calculated arrears in the second week of January. We calculated the arrears from April to December.
In other words, we have paid for December. So, we have paid the minimum wage from April to December last year, because the effective date for the new Minimum Wage based on the agreement with labour was April 2019. The arrears we cleared was about N4 billion. Now, we have also prepared the January salary with the minimum wage. So, FCT is on the move. There is no issue of backlog and the payment was not in instalment everything was paid at once”, he said.
While calling on workers to re-double their efforts in the discharge of their duties, the director assured civil servants in the FCTA of the minister’s commitment to the prompt payment of salaries and other welfare packages due to them.
