The Governor of Abia State, Alex Otti, has assured that by the end of March, the lingering pension arrears problem in Abia State will be resolved permanently as a lot of progress has been made in that regard.

He gave the assurance while speaking during the monthly media chat with journalists on Monday.

Otti said his administration is very passionate about ensuring that all bottlenecks surrounding the issue of pension arrears are completely resolved.

On why some civil servants have yet to receive their salaries for some months even after undergoing verification, the Governor said a meeting has been fixed with the Accountant General and Commissioner for Finance to resolve issues responsible for why those affected do not receive their salaries alongside co-workers.

On upward review of salaries of Abia workers as promised and the federal government wage award to workers across the country, he said that a committee has been working on modalities and implementation of same, assuring that the report of the committee is being expected soonest.

On programmes of the State government in ensuring food security, Governor Otti noted that road infrastructure, improved security and other initiatives being taken by his government are all geared towards creating the right atmosphere for Abians to access their farmlands freely while the Ministry of Agriculture is making sure that all available land in the state is cultivated this farming season for food sufficiency.

The Abia Chief Executive added that efforts are on to retrieve farm estates which are in the hands of private investors currently and that plans are underway to make available funds to 100 farmers and small business owners in each of the 17 LGAS of the state in the first instance while efforts will be made to extend the gesture to the ward level.

According to him, “We are working round the clock to see that all lands that are available particularly to the state are cultivated this planting season. There are quite a lot of plantations that we are still trying to disentangle. Some of them have been concessioned by previous governments to people who are actually not planting them and we have in the last few months been engaged in trying to disentangle some of those concessions.

“We also have programmes that support people involved in agriculture and trade and commerce at a very low level. The cooperative arrangements that we just put in place would make available not less than 100 thousand Naira to farmers and traders. I believe a hundred of them per Local Government in the first instance and then, we would go to the wards”.