The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has raised salaries of Federal Government workers by 250 percent since 2015.
The Minister made this disclosure during the 2023 Budget breakdown in Abuja yesterday while reacting to requests for fresh salary review for public sector workers.
She said that such an exercise require huge resources and that the government would rather first consider the implementation of the recommendations of the Steve Oronsaye Committee on restructuring of the ministries and agencies.
On funding of the education sector, and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) crises, Ahmed disclosed that funds had been earmarked to meet the demands.
She said that special provisions had been made to meet their funding, including the arrears.
She also disclosed that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme was being reviewed to enable Diaspora Nigerians serve whenever they return home, against the three-year time frame provided by the NYSC Act.
Mrs Ahmed said that Nigeria was not seeking debt restructuring because its debt “is sustainable”.
According to her, “Nigeria is not planning on restructuring its debt as it remains committed to meeting its domestic and external debt obligations.
“The FG will continue to utilize appropriate debt management tools to streamline the cost and risk profile in the debt portfolio, including through concessional loans, spreading out of debt maturities to avoid bunching, and re-profiling of the debt maturities by refinancing short-term debt using long-term debt instruments.”
Source: Vanguard
