Christmas may be bleak everywhere, but not for Anambra State Government workers as Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, has increased salaries of the state civil servants by ten per cent.
At the 2022 Public Service Day in Awka, the state capital, he announced another bounty for them. They are to get N15,000 as Christmas bonus.
His words at the event: “Given my own background as a worker, what we are not able to do for the working class, you must understand it is literally impossible.
“On the issue of Christmas rice, we reviewed how it’s done in the past and discovered that it is no longer tenable.
“I understand in previous years that past governments gave 25kg bag of rice to civil servants for Christmas.
“The state of Nigeria is bad. Everybody is complaining. Prices are rising very fast, I look at you and wonder how you cope.
“Today, 50kg bag of rice costs over forty thousand naira (₦40,000). That’s beyond the salary of a graduate in the public service. Something is not right!
“What we will do instead, between today and tomorrow, we will first of all make sure that our pensioners are taken care of, to demonstrate good faith. I wish we could do much more but today, you will receive an alert of fifteen thousand naira (₦15,000) as Christmas bonus.
“The income is not increasing, government revenue is not increasing. We cannot print money.
“I understand what you feel and wish that our revenue will go up so we can multiply what comes to you in proportion to Nigeria’s inflation.
“We have made the budget for next year and it has been signed. Any new thing not in the budget can’t be done.
“Last year public service day, I was here to plead for your votes. Today, I have appeared to you as the Governor of this state. You employed me as your Chief servant and I am your employee….
“We are not supposed to be celebrating public service at this time of the year but I insisted, to thank you all for the year 2022 before we cross over into 2023.
“Our five fingers of Government includes; Security, law and order; Economic transformation, social agenda, reforming ways government works and the environment.
“Streetlights are coming back. It’s not possible to keep powering them with diesel now that a litre is over eight hundred naira (N800). We are replacing them with solar because it is more sustainable and strategic.
“Under my watch, everyone that retired in the Anambra public service has been paid their gratuities. For those who retired since 2018, we are doing the payments gradually to restore hope to them.”