By Matthew Don
Reprieve has come the way of retire employees of the defunct Nigerian Airways as the Federal Government has approved the sum of N22.68 billion for the payment of their benefits.
President Muhammadu Buhari was said to have made the approval, which is about 50 per cent of the N45.3 billion entitlements of the former workers of the company.
Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed confirmed the approval on Monday in Abuja during a press briefing held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance.
Apart from the N22.8 billion for the former aviation workers, she said that the sum of N20 billion was approved for the education sector.
She said: “Upon my resumption of office as the minister of finance,some pending fiscal issues in the aviation and education sectors were immediately brought to my attention.
“As such, I took it as a challenge to quickly address key issues regarding the settlement of existing claims in both of these sectors.
“Consequently, upon this, I am happy to inform you that Mr President has graciously approved the sum of N22.68 billion and N20 billion to aviation and education sectors respectively.”
According to the minister, the initial outstanding retirement benefits due to ex-workers of the Nigerian Airways based on their submission was N78 billion.
She said after a verification exercise by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit and other relevant stakeholders in line with the condition of service of the liquidated Nigerian Airways Ltd, it was the sum of N45 billion was agreed as the total retirement benefits to the affected staff.
“The ex-workers of Nigeria Airways Ltd in liquidation were not paid their retirement benefits for the past 15 years despite the liquidation.”