Senate To Pass Amended Budget On One-year Salary For Sacked NIMC Workers

The Senate Committee on Appropriation, on Wednesday, formally laid its report on the amendments to the 2013 Appropriation Act before the entire house, preparatory to the passage of the amended budget on Thursday.

The Chairman of the committee, Senator Ahmed Maccido, after getting approval of the Senate leadership, brought the amended budget bill before his colleagues.

The amendments will be passed today before the Senate will embark on a two-month recess.

The Senate read the amendment bill for the second time on Tuesday and gave the committee 24 hours to report back.

The crux of the amendment is the restoration of the N78.54bn reduced from the subheads of some government Ministries, Departments and Agencies by the National Assembly before passing it in December last year.

After an initial stand-off, the leadership of both chambers of the National Assembly agreed to restore the cuts by approving the amendments suggested by President Goodluck Jonathan.

The report on the amendment bill is to authorise the issuance from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation the total sum of N4.987tn.

The Senate also on Wednesday approved the recommendation of its Joint Committee on the National Identity Card, Labour and Productivity for the payment of one-year salary to each of the 4,029 disengaged workers of the National Identity Management Commission.

The report, which was presented by Senator Ake Wilson, who heads the Labour and Productivity Committee, agreed that the commission had the right to disengage the employees after designating them as redundant.

Ake said, “Section 20 of the Labour Act allows an organisation to discharge excess workers by declaring redundancy and negotiating redundancy payments, which will be made to the worker compulsorily at the point of discharge.

“The public service rules provide for compulsory severance from service for the purpose of removing excess manpower and facilitating improvement in the organisation.”

The committee then recommended that the 96 officers, who had additional qualifications, should be reabsorbed by the commission.