Otti Sets Up Help Desk To Resolve Salary Arrears Complaints In Abia

The Abia State Governor, Dr Alex Otti, has set up a help desk to treat all complaints and inquiries on salary payment and arrears in fulfillment of his campaign promise of clearing over 40 months backlog of inherited salaries including arrears of pensions.

The government said the help desk which is at the office of the Accountant-General, Ministry of Finance, has become necessary in order to address all issues of discrepancies and complaints in payment of salaries of all genuine civil servants duly engaged by the government of Abia State.

It will be recall that on resumption of office, the Otti administration had met a debt of over N42bn involving salaries and pension arrears of civil servants in the state which had accumulated over the years due to neglect by the PDP led administration.

A statement issued by the Minister of Information, Prince Okey Kanu, said, “We met a very dysfunctional payroll system that I want to assume was deliberately manipulated to steal and defraud the hard working civil servants by unscrupulous elements in the previous administration.

“However, we are paying up the salary arrears as promised. At present, discussions are ongoing with the leadership of the pensioners, government is planning a bullet payment system, that will be very useful and we maintain that all outstanding arrears will be paid before the year runs out

“Regarding the discrepancies of some having received and others complaining not to have received their full salaries; it will be clear to state that, in the process of tidying up the confusion we met in the payroll system, it was discovered that some workers have issues with their account information, conflicting BVN information etc, some of these exception have been handled.

“More so, to finally put to rest the raging complaints and confusion being circulated on social media by the uninformed and exploited by the opposition, we decided to establish a Help Desk at the office of the Accountant General, Ministry of Finance, by Bank Road, Umuahia, to treat all inquiries regarding conflicts in receiving of all salaries as promised by this administration.

“The Office is open to everyone that has issues regarding payment of salaries and will provide answers to every questions in like manner.”