Governor of Anambra State, Professor Chukwuma Soludo has directed payment of N15,000 to government workers as Christmas bonus and also increased salaries by 10% for all employees of the state government.
Newsonline reports that Governor Soludo said the increment became necessary following the rising price of foodstuff in the market while the salary of workers remained the same.
Anambra governor gave the directive on Tuesday at the celebration of the “2022 Public Service Day”.
Soludo in a statement made available by Christian Aburime, his chief press secretary, read, “On the issue of Christmas rice, we reviewed how it’s done in the past and discovered that it is no longer tenable. I understand, in previous years, that past governments gave 25kg bags of rice to civil servants for Christmas.
“The state of Nigeria is bad. Everybody is complaining. Prices are rising very fast. I look at you and wonder how you cope. Today, 50kg bag of rice costs over N40,000. That’s beyond the salary of a graduate in the public service. Something is not right!”
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Governor Soludo also directed payment of all retirees of the government their pensions on or before Wednesday (today).
“What we will do instead, between today and tomorrow, we will, first of all, make sure that our pensioners are taken care of, to demonstrate good faith,” he said.
He lamented that the state government revenue has been affected by the state of the national economy which has affected plans of the government.
He added, “I wish we could do much more but today, you will receive an alert of N15,000 as Christmas bonus.
“The income is not increasing; government revenue is not increasing. We cannot print money. I understand what you feel and wish that our revenue will go up so we can multiply what comes to you in proportion to Nigeria’s inflation.”
