The Office of the Accountant General on Saturday said the salaries of Federal Civil Servants have been paid.

The Office also noted that civil servants would receive their wage awards as soon as possible.

Sunday PUNCH reports that the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, in a statement issued criticised President Bola Tinubu’s administration for failing to pay civil servants.

In a statement on Saturday, spokesperson for the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, said the development was “insensitive and unacceptable”.

Ologunagba said Tinubu’s administration had turned the country into a “huge internally displaced persons camp with millions of Nigerians becoming beggars and observing the period in hunger, anguish and misery”.

“It is obvious that the non-payment of the December salary critically needed by the workers, including our gallant security operatives at this period, is consistent with the atrocious character of the APC administration to weaponise poverty and further suppress Nigerians to surrender to totalitarianism,” the statement reads.

The PDP described the situation as a “heartless act by the anti-people APC administration”, saying it “never happened in the 16 years of the PDP in government”.

However reacting in an interview with Sunday PUNCH in Abuja, the spokesperson for the Office of the Accountant General, Bawa Mokwa, said the salaries of civil servants had been paid.

Bawa said, “The salaries have been paid. People have started getting their salaries from last week Friday. Most people got it day before yesterday. Check with the Ministries, Departments and Agencies. Confirm with them; salaries have been paid.”

On the issue of the wage award, he said, “The wage award will come after the salaries.”

Also speaking with our correspondent, a top civil servant in a Federal Government ministry confirmed the development, “Yes, salaries have been paid. I received mine on Friday, but the wage award was not included.”

Sunday PUNCH reports that the Bola Tinubu administration had come under fire over recent delays in the payments of salaries of civil servants.

Some civil servants for instance did not receive their November 2023 salaries until the first week of December 2023, a development which civil servants noted was new to the civil service.

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress on Saturday dismissed the allegation of insensitivity made by the PDP against the Federal Government, saying the reported delay in payment of December salary for civil servants might be attributed to a glitch in the system.

The ruling party also warned the PDP to desist from making unfounded claims and destructive criticism that would lead the country anywhere.

The Deputy National Organising Secretary of the APC, Nze Chidi Duru, chided the PDP, stressing that it was not everything any serious opposition party should play politics with.

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