Police Tasked To Pay Promotion Arrears

LUCKY LAWAL

The Nigeria Police recently announced the increment of salaries by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari, which brought hope into the Force has been asked to look into the issue of unpaid promotion arrears of Police Officers.

It has been revealed through a reliable source that the Police have refused to pay promotion arrears to its officers and rank and file who were promoted to various ranks since 2016.

According to the source who spoke to P.M.EXPRESS, the ranks affected were Deputy Superintendent of Police, Inspectors and rank and file. It was announced recently that President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the increase of salaries, allowances and pensions of Police in Nigeria but the date of commencement was not mentioned since the President called for more efficient policing of the country to create more confidence for both the Government and Nigerians.

The officers want the issue of their promotion arrears to be looked into. Our source who pleaded anonymity claimed he was promoted to the rank of a DSP in 2016 with some of his mates but were yet to be paid the promotion arrears despite the Federal Government through the Ministry of Finance releasing in batches money running into billions of Naira for the payment of promotion arrears of Federal workers but Police were yet to pay its own workforce affected.

According to him,” what they did was asking us to fill Advice of Change, which we submitted since 2016 but up till now nothing has happened”. Early this year there was a report in one of the dailies that the agency saddled with the responsibility of salary payment for all Federal Government employees, Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System (IPPIS) was out to effect outstanding arrears on promotion and annual step increment of officers of the Nigeria Police by the end of March, 2018. It was then reported that IPPIS has noted that all the arrears for promotion, annual step increment which were yet to be paid would be paid to the affected officers without delay.

The information available to P.M.EXPRESS revealed that they were placed on commensurate salary with their new ranks in January 2018, but wondered what has happened to their arrears of 2016 and 2017. They are appealing to President Muhammodu Buhari to look into the issue.