Ikpeazu while making this known via a statement made available to Naija Crawl, said

additional 1 or 2 months arrears will be paid to the Health Management Board (HMB), secondary school, teachers, College of Education and ABSUTH.

According to him, the payment of arrears will continue in January 2021.

Ikpeazu, however, insisted that staff verification using BVN & bank details must happen before these funds are released to real & authenticated staff only.

The statement reads in parts,

“The issue of wage bill management is a knotty problem in our clime especially with regard to agencies & parastatals who ordinarily are supposed to be self sustaining in terms of revenue generation & prompt service delivery! However the reality is that these agencies indulge in over staffing & poor fiscal procedures leading to bloated wages which their subventions cannot carry!”

“But in the spirit of a new Abia, we’ve decided to embark on a systematic replacement of managers of these agencies found wanting in the discharge of their duties, while we support strategies aimed at improving IGR!”

“Meanwhile, I’ve ordered the payment of salary to ALL Abia workers starting from yesterday, the 21st while additional 1 or 2 months arrears will be paid to the Health Management Board (HMB), secondary school, teachers, College of Education and ABSUTH ! The payment of arrears will continue in January 2021.”

“However, I insist that staff verification using BVN & bank detailsmust happen before these funds are released to real & authenticated staff only. We must arrest the bleeding!!!”

“It is important to underline the fact that all the workers in our ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), making up more than 70% of our State workforce, received December 2020 salary yesterday. Our focus is now to solve the issues around our state parastatals that ordinarily should make revenue and use same to pay their work