Ahead of the Christmas celebration, the governor of Gombe state Inuwa Yahaya has directed the payment of December salary to the state civil servants on Monday 20th.
The governor who gave the directive on Friday while signing the 2022 budget passed by the state house of assembly into law also ordered the payment of N700 million gratuity to retirees in the state.
He explained that he decided to pay the salary and gratuity to enable the state citizens celebrate Christmas and new year festival without hitches.
According to the governor, the sum of N1.5 billion was earmarked in the budget for settlement of outstanding gratuities of retired civil servants.
The governor noted that Gombe is among the few states in the country that pays salaries before month ends with the new national minimum wage:
Yahaya commended the state assembly for passing the budget within one month claiming that the state government was able to implement last year’s budget by over 70 per cent.
He said the 2022 budget allocates 54 per cent to capital expenditure and sets aside 46 per cent for recurrent expenditure in line with the government’s determination to execute a lot of development projects.
In his speech, the speaker of Gombe state house of assembly Abubakar Mohammed Luggerowo stated that after receiving the proposed budge from the government, the house invited commissioners and heads of departments and agencies to defend the budgets of their organizations.
He added that after careful scrutiny, the house passed the bill into law. He lauded the governor for allocating larger share of the budget to capital projects.