Nasarawa State Government has received its second tranche of the fiscal transparency grant, with the state government setting aside a percentage to pay local government retirees their monthly pension.
Nasarawa State Governor, Engineer Abdullahi Sule, disclosed this while swearing in the new acting Chief Judge of the state, Hon. Justice Aisha Bashir Aliyu, at a ceremony at the Government House, on Thursday.
According to Governor Sule, the second tranche, which is even higher than the first, is money coming to the state purely for being transparent in governance, with the Governor deciding to remove a percentage of the money to assist local government areas by paying retirees their monthly pension.
The Governor, who just returned to the state after his sojourn to the United States, where he spent his annual vacation, realised that pensioners at the local government level are yet to receive their monthly pension.
“Even though the money is coming to the state, I cannot sit on that money knowing that we also assisted from the last money we received, to pay gratuity to the same LG pensioners,” Engineer Sule stated.
The Governor added that, this is aside of the 5 percent or less of the money that will be devoted towards the payment of gratuity of retired workers at the state government level.
While using the opportunity of the event to update the people of the state on the activities of his administration, Engineer Sule further disclosed that following recent decision by the Federal Government to select Adamawa, Plateau and Nasarawa as pilot states for the National Livestock Transformation Programme (NLTP), Nasarawa State has been selected as the first state out of the three to kick-start the programme.
The Governor said it has become imperative for him to open up on the activities of the state government, in line with his promise to be open, transparent and share with the people progress being made.
Recall that only recently, the Governor announced that the state was in receipt of the first tranche of the $10m grant given by the World Bank, after Nasarawa State, for the first time since its creation, qualified for the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SIFTAS).
