Adeosun insists N1.2b overtime payment demanded by workers can’t be paid

In the explanation offered by a spokesman of the Ministry, Adeosun said the Government will continue to pay entitlements due to the workers as and when due but not an allowance that had been stopped since 2014
The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, has said the demand for Special Overtime allowance by staff of the Ministry cannot be met.
The Minister, in a statement on Thursday, said there were inaccuracies in some media reports that suggested she had agreed to the payment of the overtime allowance during a meeting with the workers on Wednesday.
In the explanation offered by a spokesman of the Ministry, Adeosun said the Government will continue to pay entitlements due to the workers as and when due but not an allowance that had been stopped since 2014.
The workers are demanding for N1.2 billion in this instance.
Apart from the fact that the allowance was stopped two years ago, the statement explained that Adeosun told the workers that the demand was not captured in the 2016 Budget.
The statement said: “However, the N1.2 Billion Special Overtime (SOT) payment being demanded by workers, which had been discontinued since 2014, is neither in the 2016 Budget of the Federal Ministry of Finance nor the Federal Inland Revenue Service from where the funds to cover the allowance had hitherto been sourced. The payment of SOT was stopped by the previous administration on the grounds that it was not listed in any extant government Circular, Financial Regulations or the Public Service Rules.”
Adeosun therefore urged the workers to be patient and understand the current challenges facing the Nigerian economy.
She said she was at pains to point out that many people across the country were struggling to find work and that the priority for the government had to be getting the whole economy back on its feet