THE Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) has given assurance that the Federal Government is working out modalities to ensure that salaries of Federal Government workers are paid early, in line with the directives of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Ahmed Idris, gave the assurance during an interactive session with a team of journalists, led by the Director, News, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Alhaji Sani Sulieman.
According to the AGF, ”there is a standing instruction from Mr President for workers to be paid on or before 24th or 25th of every month,” but said compliance had been hampered by the limited resources available to government which could only be determined after the monthly FAAC meeting.
He, however, revealed that government had taken further steps to make a provision that would accommodate salary payment, even before FAAC, saying this would be given a test this month.
Idris stated that his office was working assiduously to ensure that it complied with the directive of President Buhari to pay salaries on or before the 24th or 25th of every month, assuring that the necessary approval would be sought and gotten “to ensure that this becomes a reality.”
In another development, the Accountant- General of the Federation has given an update on the amount so far collected on the Treasury Single Account(TSA) platform to be slightly above N2.7 trillion.
He further stated that these monies belonged to Federal Government Ministries, Department and Agencies, and meant for their operations and not for sharing or for any other purposes as being reported in some quarters of the media.
Idris said the TSA had helped government to have a firm and full control of its resources, blocking leakages, helping it to reduce the cost of borrowing and to monitor spending in the MDAs.
He called on all organisations who had problems on the operations of the TSA to come forward with their problems, assuring that the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation was committed to resolving what-ever challenges they might have, in line with best practices.