At last, federal civil servants start getting their January salary

At last, civil servants working for the Federal Government have started receiving their salary for January 2012.
The Eagle Online learnt that the first batch of bank alerts were received by some of the civil servants on Friday (yesterday).

This development runs contrary to the promise of the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, that the civil servants would receive their salaries for last month by January 20.
Jonathan made the promise in the heat of the crisis that followed the increase in the pump price of petrol from N65 to N141, which was later reduced to N97.
A source, who is a civil servant, told The Eagle Online that he received alert for his salary at about 7pm yesterday.
The source said: “Some of us have received the alert for our January pay.
“But a lot of us are yet to the alert for the salary.”
In fact, some civil servants said they initially received alerts crediting them with just N6,000 earlier in the day.
Another source added: “We just turned it into a joke when these texts crediting us with N6,000 only started coming in.
“You could hear us asking ourselves: have you planned how to spend your N6,000 for the month?”
A source in The Presidency told The Eagle Online that the government was broke, which was why it could not pay the salary of its civil servants on time.
The source said that when Jonathan made the promise, he had thought the government would be bouyant enough to meet the deadline he set.
The source added: “But as it turned out, the expectation of the President was not just realised as a lot of factors hindered the payment as promised.
“Part of it was the strike action over the increase in the cost of petrol, which led to a huge loss of revenue in billions.
“Now, things appear to be settling down and the expectation is that salaries will no longer be delayed again this year.”