A joint protest by staff of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Budget Office of the Ministry of Budget and National Planning has been described as unjustified by federal authorities.
Staff of the affected government agencies had On Monday locked the gate to their offices and prevented Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, from gaining entrance.
They demanded the payment of a special overtime allowance totalling N1.2 billion and the removal of Adeosun has been brought to the attention of the Management of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Chanting “Ole!” “She must go!” the angry workers came with placards with inscriptions like “Adeosun: Pay us our N1.2 billion special overtime allowance”, “PMB sack Mrs. Adeosun now. She is insensitive to workers’ welfare,” “Adeosun: you are destroying finance ministry”, You must go”, “You are incompetent “, “You are killing PMB’s change agenda” and “Inflation is 15% because of Adeosun’s incompetence.”
The Finance Ministry, however, said in a statement by its Director of Information, Salisu Na’inna Dambatta, that the workers’ demands were not justified.
According to the statement, “The payment of what the protesting staff called a Special Overtime (SOT) was stopped by the last administration in 2014 on the ground that it was not listed in any extant government Circular, Financial Regulations or the Public Service Rules.
“The sum of N1.2 billion computed by the staff union for payment could not have been budgeted for in 2016 in the first place, not only because of the paucity of funds, but also the fact that the SOT allowance was not part of the remuneration in the Federal Public Service; and
“The Federal Ministry of Finance, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Budget Office of the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, do not individually or collectively, owe any of their personnel their salaries.
“In view of the foregone, the Management of the Federal Ministry of Finance wishes to categorically state that the protests have no justifiable grounds.”
