From Adanna Nnamanni, Abuja
Despite Federal Government’s earlier clarifications, the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) – Trade Union Side has vowed to picket the office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), over alleged salary cuts for federal public servants.
The action is set to take place on April 3, 2025
In a letter dated March 17, and addressed to the AGF, the union decried the sharp reductions and mutilations in salary payments for January and February 2025.
In the document signed by the National Secretary of JNPSNC, Olowoyo Gbenga, the union criticized an earlier press release issued by the AGF’s office, which reportedly justified the salary cuts by citing payments made in previous months.
The AGF’s office had claimed that salaries for October, November, and December 2024 included: Arrears of Consequential Adjustments from the 2024 Minimum Wage Act, aix months’ arrears of the N35,000 wage award and rrears of 25% and 35% salary increases.
However, the JNPSNC rejected these claims, stating that an independent review of federal workers’ payslips for the period showed no evidence of such payments.
The union described the AGF’s justification as media propaganda and insisted that the federal government still owed workers several outstanding payments, including six months of unpaid wage awards from February to July 2024, unpaid arrears of minimum wage salary adjustments, and unfulfilled 25% and 35% salary harmonization for core civil servants.
It expressed frustration that the AGF’s office had not engaged in dialogue before issuing its public statement and also accused the government of shortchanging workers in the payment of Peculiar Allowances, which were supposed to be 40% of salaries but were allegedly drastically reduced.
The JNPSNC further demanded that the AGF’s office correct all salary anomalies by month end and pay the arrears of the reduced salaries for January and February.
“Without mincing words, failure on the part of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to do the needful, by paying normal salaries in the month of March 2025 ( and arrears of short payments that characterised the months of January and February 2025 salaries) workers will not hesitate to picket the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation , *by Wednesday 3rd April, 2025*, in order to correct the unwarranted and unjustifiable Salaries cut,” it warned.
The statement further stated that the offices of the: Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Chairman of income Salaries and wages commission, leaderships of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Presidents/ General Secretaries of affiliate unions of Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) Trade Union Side have been notified accordingly.
Earlier, the AGF had OAGF) had insisted that there were no shortfalls in salaries paid to Federal Workers in January and February 2025.
The OAGF explained that the salaries that workers received in the said months were their normal salaries after the various arrears that were paid from October to December 2024 were exhausted.
The Spokesperson, Bawa Mokwa, clarified that, “various salary arrears were paid in the last quarter of 2024, namely: minimum wage arrears, 25%/35% increase in salary arrears and wage award arrears. All these arrears were paid from the month of October 2024 to December 2024. This made salaries increase abnormally over the last quarter of 2024”.
“Payment of normal salaries after exhausting the various arrears began in January 2025, which made some workers think that they were shortchanged, when in actual sense, it was their real salaries. A glance at the current salary table will substantiate this further”.
He further noted that barring any other salary arrears in the future, what was paid in January and February 2025 shall continue to be the salaries, until such a time that the Federal Government reviews the salaries.
Mokwa revealed that there were cases of overpayments in the month of December 2024 due to system error, adding that the error has been corrected and deductions in respect of the overpayments from the salaries of affected workers was on-going and shall continue until such overpayments were fully recovered.
On the payment of promotion arrears, he said the exercise is handled by a Standing Committee on Promotion and Salary Arrears in the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF) which compiles and vets all salary and promotion arrears from various MDAs before such is channeled in batches to IPPIS for payment.
The Spokesperson said IPPIS has fully paid batches 1 to 6 and is awaiting more batches from the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF) for payment.
He further reiterated the determination of the Office to efficiently manage the IPPIS and advised workers with genuine complaints about their salaries to follow the formal processes to get such resolved as quickly as possible.