New Pay: Police Pacify Restive Officers over Dashed Hope …Preach Endurance at Jumat Service

Segun Atanda/                                                                         

Police officers nationwide appear to have taken the Federal Government off their Christmas list after waiting in vain for the payment of upgraded salaries and rent subsidies approved and confirmed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Several reasons, including non-availability of funds, are being given for the non-payment of the approved upgrade which the President had ordered to take effect from November 1, 2018, and be funded from the Nation’s treasury.

Part of the blames was also apportioned to some inconsistencies in the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

IPPIS, which began with seven Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), in 2007, is one of the Federal Government’s public finance reforms aimed at determining the actual strength of its workers and helping with budgeting as well as annual planning.

NewsmakersNG learnt that the salaries and allowances might come three months in arrears before the elections next year, as officers spoke of such experience in the past when they were paid their salaries upgraded by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua six months in arrears.

During a Jumat service in a mosque at a police formation in Oduduwa yesterday, the Imam’s voice wafting through public space on loudspeakers pleaded with officers not to take such matters to heart.

In his messages, the Police Imam also urged the officers to shun corruption and commit their cause to God.

Since NewsmakersNG broke the news of the upgrade in police salaries and rent subsidy, there have been a series of queries on search engines captured on a daily basis by the online newspaper on the what, when, and how the new salaries would be.

The queries on search engines captured by NewsmakersNG included, “Any news from the state about NPF salary for Xmas Dec 2018? Police new salary structure; do new police salaries require Senate approval?

‘For those who are curious about the nature of the upgrade, NewsmakersNG has learnt that the Federal Government’s package would only move officers to the next level of their civil service grade salaries along with the token added to the housing allowance.’

For those who are curious about the nature of the upgrade, NewsmakersNG has learnt that the Federal Government’s package would only move officers to the next level of their civil service grade salaries along with the token added to the housing allowance.

Following growing anxiety among officers after NewsmakersNG broke the news, the authorities had issued a signal to all police formations describing the report as fake news.

But President Buhari validated NewsmakersNG’s report when he announced on November 28 that he had actually ordered an increment in police salary.

Twenty-Eight days earlier, on October 31, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Ibrahim Idris, had been informed of the Presidential approval in a compendious memo from the Office of the Executive Chairman, National Salaries, Incomes & Wages Commission, High Chief Richard Onwuka Egbule.

In the memo, High Chief Egbule conveyed the Presidential “approval for the Nigeria Police Force to implement the New Salary Grading/Ranking Structure, the Consolidated Police Salary Structure and the Rent Subsidy…”

The memo sighted by NewsmakersNG specifically stated: “This approval takes effect from November 1, 2018, and will be funded from the treasury as already indicated in the Presidential approval.”

Read NewsmakersNG earlier report here: