President Muhammadu Buhari has approved a comprehensive relief package valued at over N400bn to put an end to the lingering crisis of unpaid workers’ salaries in the country.
Vanguard gathered that a three-pronged relief package that will end the workers plight include:
*The sharing of about $2.1b (N413.7bn) in fresh allocation between the states and the federal government. The money is sourced from recent LNG proceeds to the federation account, and its release okayed by the president;
*A Central Bank-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, ranging from between N250bn to N300bn. This would be a soft loan available to states to access for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries;
* And a debt relief program proposed by the Debt Management Office, DMO, which will help states restructure their commercial loans currently put at over N660bn, and extend the life span of such loans while reducing their debt-servicing expenditures.