Governor Oyebanji Unveils ₦12 Billion Economic Relief Programme
Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, has approved another set of relief programmes to alleviate the hardship being experienced by the people of the state in the face of the current global economic downturn.
In a statement by the Special Adviser to the governor on Media Yinka Oyebode, these programmes include the payment of one month salary arrears to State and Local Government workers totalling over N2.7 billion.
The Governor also approved an increase of N600 million per month in the subvention of autonomous institutions including the Judiciary and all tertiary institutions.
This is to allow the institutions to implement the wage award being implemented for State and Local Government workers.
In the same vein, Governor Oyebanji also approved the payment of two months pension arrears owed State and Local Government workers totalling N1.5 billion, as well as N100 million monthly gratuity payment to state pensioners and an increment of the current N50 million monthly gratuity to local Government pensioners to N100 million.
The State Government has also committed the sum of N1 billion to improve food production, especially to embark on land preparation, driven by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security’s tractorization subsidy scheme, and an input supply programme to support small scale farmers.
Similarly, the Government is also committing a sum of N1.2 billion it recently got as first tranche of the World Bank-financed Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support ( L-PRES) Project to transform the livestock subsector.
The State government is also launching a N500 million loan programme in partnership with Access Bank to support medium and small scale businesses.
This is in addition to N1 billion cooperative fund to provide low interest working capital for cooperatives and members.