Ebonyi Govt spends about 5bn to clear retired workers gratuities

Ebonyi State Government says it has cleared the second tranche payment of gratuities for retirees civil servants from 1996 to 2023 totalling over N5 billion.

The state governor, Francis Nwifuru, approved the sum of N1.6 billion for the exercise.

The committee in charge of the exercise concluded payment of the backlog on Thursday.

This was contained in a statement issued on Friday by the governor’s Special Assistant on New Media, Mr Leo Oketa.

Those who received their gratuities included those in the spill over list of retirees from the initial payment (1996 to 2021), and retirees from 2022 to 2023.

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The just concluded second phase started from April 30, 2024 to May 9, 2024.

The total number of retirees cleared and paid from the spill over list is 256. A total sum of N394.9 million was expended on the spill over list.

Retirees cleared and paid for the 2022 to 2023 set were 277 in number. The total gratuity in amounts paid for this set is N1.030 billion.

Also, the total number of retirees paid for the second tranche is 533, both for the spill over of those paid earlier (1996 to 2021) and those of 2022 to 2023. The total sum expended in the second phase is N1.4 billion.

The statement added, “Note that for this second phase, 636 retirees were in the approved list, but 533 retirees were cleared and paid as at May 9, 2024. The remaining 103 retirees in the approved list did not show up for the verification exercise cum payment.

“The committee will bring up their report to the Governor and from then on, chart a way forward for the next step.

“You may wish to recall, that on October 23, 2023 – last day of payment for the first phase from 1996 to 2021, 1,558 retirees were cleared and paid to a tune of three billion, six hundred and eight million, five hundred and thirty-six million, four hundred and sixty-nine naira, three kobo (N3,608,536,469.03) from the four billion naira (N4,000,000,000.00) approved by the governor.

“As such, since assumption of office till date, Ebonyi State Government has cleared backlog of gratuities of 2,091 retirees of Ebonyi State Civil Service from 1996 to 2023, to a tune of five billion, thirty-four million, four hundred and seventeen thousand, one hundred and twenty-three naira, ninety-nine kobo (N 5,034,417,123.99), only.”