Civil servants across ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have lamented the slow pace of activities and other schedules in the discharge of their responsibilities due to the non-availability of fund following the freezing order on their accounts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
A report by Daily Trust on Sunday said that senior government and low cadre officials were complaining that non-availability of funds was hampering the operation and expectation of the workers.
It was reported that the federal government had placed embargo on further payments to the MDAs of the federal government till further notice.
Officials, however, said that it was the administration of the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari that gave the order days before the handover of power to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to prevent the looting of government treasury or other untoward last-minute and frivolous spending.
“I can tell you that it was the administration of former President Buhari that actually gave the directive to the CBN, and this has nothing to do with the suspended governor of the apex bank, Godwin Emefiele,” a senior government official said.
Reports said that workers in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) were lamenting the cash crunch, with two of them saying that it was one of the reasons for the low key June 12 celebration and the non hosting of the SGF, Senator George Akume, who resumed office on June 7.
Also, senior officials in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHoCSF), were quoted to have said that they were caught unawares as they were expecting the Tinubu administration to place the freezing order, and were shocked that it was the Buhari administration that did that for reasons they did not understand.
“We first got the information from our colleagues from the SGF, who asked us if we had such experience on non-disbursement of fund. I even told one of them that there were still mandates and schedules to be met, until two of our memos were returned with minutes on the freezing of the accounts,” another official said.
Reports have it that apart from the payment of salaries to federal workers, which payment is being done directly from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, every other payment or financial mandates cannot be honoured due to the embargo.
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