By Abimbola Ogunnaike
In a bid to alleviate the hardship being experienced by people of the Ondo State in the face of the current global economic downturn, the state Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, on Monday, 26 February, 2024 unveiled N12 billion Economic Relief Programme.
Oyebanji, who assured Ekiti people of commitment to their welfare and wellbeing, urged them to cooperate with the government at the local, state, and federal levels.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Governor’s Special Adviser on Media, Olayinka Oyebode, to newsmen on Monday, 26 February, 2024.
“Concerted efforts are being made not only to cushion the effect of the economic situation but to grow the economy in line with the shared prosperity agenda of the administration and the renewed hope agenda of President Bola Tinubu,” Oyebode said in the statement.
According to Oyebode, the set of programmes under the ERP include: “the payment of one-month salary arrears to state and local government workers totalling over N2.7 billion. With this payment, the government has cleared the salary arrears owed to state government workers and will ensure the arrears owed to local government workers are cleared this year.”
“The governor also approved an increase of N600m per month in the subvention of autonomous institutions including the Judiciary and all tertiary institutions to allow the institutions to implement the wage award being implemented for state and local government workers.
“The governor also approved the payment of two months pension arrears owed to state and local government workers totalling N1.5b, as well as N100m monthly gratuity payment to state pensioners and an increment of the current N50m monthly gratuity to local government pensioners to N100m,” he said
Oyebode added that the state government had also committed N1b to improve food production, especially to embark on land preparation, driven by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security’s tractorisation subsidy scheme, and an input supply programme to support small-scale farmers.
According to him, the state government is also committing N1.2b it recently got as the first tranche of the World Bank-financed Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project to transform the livestock subsector.
