Follow Us on Google
Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
Governor Kayode Fayemi has promised to pay an estimated N57 billion salary and pension owed workers and pensioners by previous governments§.
He urged those nursing the fear that the arrears have become bad debt to perish the thought.
At his inauguration, he had promised to offset the arrears before his first year in office, but regretted that he could not owing to paucity of funds.
The governor spoke in Ado Ekiti, in his state-of-the-state address at the state House of Assembly to mark the first year of his second term tenure.
“Let me assure our workers that your salary arrears are not bad debt. I acknowledge your contributions to the growth of our state and as a government, we are going to ensure that we pay all that were outstanding.”
Fayemi said he would not renege on his promise to begin the implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage from this month.
He said in his bid to deliver on his promises, the state now enjoys strong ties with the African Development Bank(AfDB), Islamic Bank, United States of America Development for International Affairs(USAid), World Health Organisation(WHO), British Department for International Affairs (DFID) and other Federal Government agencies.
“All these agencies are now working assiduously with us to ensure massive development and turning around of decrepit facilities into models,” he said.
He said the newly revamped Ikun Dairy Farm will produce 9,000 litres of milk daily while the social security scheme has been relaunched to give stipends to the elderly to alleviate poverty in the system.
“As we progress into the future, we are hopeful that we will do better in our second year because we have laid a solid foundation. We are looking forward to a future full of hope, a future without poverty and a future with progress and prosperity.
“You should expect more developmental projects next year because the African Development Bank funded airport, Ado Ekiti Ring Road, dualisation of Ado-Akure road, 1,000-kilometre rural roads across all the 16 councils and others would have been completed in our second year.
“I appreciate Ekiti people for their support and I solicit more working partnerships with the legislative arm and the judiciary for me to be able to make more positively impactful strides as I proceed into the second year of our administration.”
He tasked the people to pay their taxes for the state to have enough funds to develop more facilities for the use of the populace.
