With just days to this year’s Christmas and New Year celebrations, Delta State Civil Service workers are hoping and aiming to be like their Edo State counterparts whose joy currently knows no bounds following the payment of their December salaries and pensions to civil servants and pensioners in the state.
This followed the fulfilment of the promises made by the Godwin Obaseki-led administration to workers in the state.
Crusoe Osagie, the Special Adviser to the Edo State Governor on Media Projects in a statement on Monday said workers and pensioners received their salaries and pensions in the early hours of Monday, December 11, 2023, in line with the announcement earlier made.
He said, “The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has paid the salaries and pensions of workers and pensioners in the State for the month of December 2023.
“The Governor Obaseki-led administration made the pledge to pay 13th-month salary on Workers Day, as a gesture to appreciate the workers for their steadfastness and also ameliorate the hardship caused by the removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government.
“The 13th month salary is slated to be paid on December 27th, as earlier announced.”
With the development, Edo State has become the first and only state to pay their workers barely two weeks into December.
Meanwhile, the cheering news of the payment of the salaries and pensions of workers and pensioners in Edo State for December 2023 has thrown some workers in Delta State into a jealous mood.
Some of them who spoke with NewsNet Nigeria on condition of anonymity on the development challenged Governor Sheriff Oborevwori to do even more for workers if Edo State whose monthly revenue allocation is far lesser than Delta State can achieve paying salaries and pensions of workers and pensioners for December 2023 plus the proposed 13th-month salary.
In the second quarter of 2023, Delta got N102.79bn, Akwa Ibom N70.01bn and Rivers N69.73 billion; Ekiti, Ebonyi and Nassarawa got N16.95bn, N16.84bn and N16.71bn.
In the first half of 2023, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Rivers also took the lead when the 36 States received N1.51tn Allocation.
