FG Begins Final Verification Of Liquidated Nigeria Airways Workers

The Federal Government has commenced the final verification of former members of staff of liquidated Nigeria Airways.

The verification exercise will be carried out by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit, Federal Ministry of Finance, in conjunction with the Ministry of Aviation.

A statement from the Federal Ministry of Finance said the exercise is the last the government would carry out to verify ex- workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways who had genuine claims but were yet to be paid.

Addressing the ex- workers, Director, PICA, Bashir Mohammed, restated that the exercise was in furtherance of the Federal Government’s determination to ensuring that all former public workers, especially those of liquidated agencies, who had genuine and legitimate claims were not denied of such.

The Director stated that PICA, a Federal Ministry of Finance department is responsible for conducting the verification exercise just as it carried out the first verification and payment of the verified staff of the defunct agency in November 2007, following an earlier approval by the late President Umaru Yar’adua.

A similar exercise had taken place in Kano, Lagos and Enugu centres to attend to the over 6,000 ex-workers of Nigerian Airways, following the approval of N22.6bn by President Muhammadu Buhari, to pay their entitlements.

The Federal Government had paid the first 50 per cent of the entitlements to the ex-workers who had completed their verification exercise in October 2018.

Buhari, who had apologised for the over a decade neglect by previous administrations, gave the directive that the verification and payment exercise for the ex-staff in Diaspora be done in London to save them the cost and stress of travelling down to Nigeria.