Okowa Pays Five Years Promotion Arrears Of Civil Servants Ahead Guber Polls

Barely five days to the Governorship and State House of Assembly elections, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State has approved payment of backlog promotion arrears owed public servants in the state from January 2015 till date.

Already, the state government has so far disbursed the total sum of N1.2 billion as payment of salary arrears to Public Servants in the MDAs who have complied with the directive from the Office of the State Head of Service.

According to Paul Osahor, Director of Information, Ministry of Information, the approval by Governor Okowa was in line with his promise on May 1, 2018 to pay promotion arrears to public servants in the employ of the State Government.

The statement reads: “For the avoidance of doubt, the Office of the State Head of Service, has directed all Heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure that the relevant updates for their MDAs are submitted to the Office of the Accountant General on or before Thursday March 7, 2019.

Any MDA that fails to comply within the stipulated deadline will be severely sanctioned, as updates received thereafter will not be entertained. For clarity, in preparing the updates, MDAs are advised to separate the arrears by year of promotion, i.e. 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 till date.

In keeping with the Governors promise, the State Government has so far disbursed the total sum of N1.2 billion as payment of salary arrears to Public Servants in the MDAs who have complied with the directive from the Office of the State Head of Service.

Public officers who have submitted their documents and have not received payment are advised to remain calm as the payment is still on-going.

Again, for the avoidance of doubt, the following MDAs are yet to be captured as a result of non-compliance, viz; Justice, Delsuth, Water Resources, Oil & Gas, Science & Tech, Library Board, DBS, Urban Renewal, SUBEB and PPEB among others,

Accordingly, public officers who have not submitted their documents for updates are by this announcement advised to submit all relevant documents for the preparation of their promotion arrears to the Account Unit of their various MDAs.

The State Government will not be held accountable for any default on the part of any public officer in the payment of promotion arrears”.