Civil servants in both state and local government areas’ employment in Nasarawa State are to enjoy N10,000 stipend for a period of six months as part of palliatives to cushion the effect of subsidy removal on them.
Governor Abdullahi Sule disclosed this during the distribution of palliatives to vulnerable people at the palace of the Esu Karu, in Karu local government area of the state, His Royal Highness Luka Panya Baba.
The governor also said both the state and local government pensioners would get the sum of N5,000 each monthly for the same period.
He also announced that some buses would be procured by the state government to reduce the cost of transportation.
The governor said beneficiaries of the 50kg bag of rice would also get N5,000 as part of the palliatives.
“As you know, this is an initiative by the federal government in order to cushion the effect of the hardship created by the removal of fuel subsidy. I have mentioned it many times and I am sure so many people have already heard it. That a total of N5 billion is going to be given to every state but it’s not going to be all cash. N2 billion has been released to us as a government, N2 billion will be released later and this is for all the 36 states. Another N1 billion is coming to us in the form of grains. And we have already started receiving that as well.
“We started initially by buying 50kg bags of rice and re-bagging them into 7.5kg. By doing that, we were thinking it was an opportunity to give more people. Because the process is taking long, we decided to go ahead and share the 50kg bags at the first stage and mostly because of the agitation for succour.
“This is in addition to other palliative measures that would be provided including buses that we are buying about 10 of them that will be able to drive on CNG and those buses will be at a reduced transport fare to reduce the cost of transportation for our people.
“As for the rice, we decided that every local government will receive 1000 of the 50kg bags and they will give us 1000 names so that everyone that is receiving one 50kg bag would also receive N5000 along,” he stated.
