According to the Sokoto State Government, the reason for deducting employees’ salary from their state civil service paychecks was so that the impacted staff members could return the loans.
The impacted workers’ repeated borrowing from financial institutions was recognized by the authorities.
The impacted state employees had obtained loans from one or two financial houses, according to Abba Muhammad Mualledi, Permanent Secretary of the State’s Ministry of Finance, who made this claim in an interview with reporters on Wednesday.
As per the PS, “during the previous administration in the state, the impacted employees in the state civil service had obtained loans from multiple financial houses.”
“Our investigation revealed that the current problem on the ground resulted from the money that the previous administration withheld from their salaries in the last six months and did not remit back to the affected financial houses.”
The permanent secretary went on to say that a meeting between the ministry and the payroll department is currently taking place to discuss how to handle any irregularities and adjust payments accordingly.
“I met with the salary department to discuss how to address all of these anomalies, and the committee will meet with the state’s affected financial houses as well as the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress.”
He went on to say that in order to control the acquisition of loans by state employees who are public servants, the ministry is collaborating with all financial institutions in the state to standardize loan records.
