Connect with us

News

Plateau Government is Not Owing Civil Servants 6 Months’ Salary – Manjang

editor

Published

on

Hon dan

The Plateau State commissioner of information and communication, Hon. Dan Manjang has dismissed the claim by online media that the state government is owing civil servants six months’ salary arrears and other sundry issues.

Hon. Dan made this known in an interview with newsmen in Jos.

According to Hon. Dan, the claim is erroneous and not true, stating that the state government is indeed owning but not all of the civil servant’s salaries.

“We staggered the payments. As of today, the political appointees are owed two months’ salary, while the core civil servants are owed one month’s salary. So, it is not true that the state government is owing up to six months’ salary. The claim is totally false. In fact, it is mischievous because everybody knows that we have paid the backlog; the backlog of no work no pay. We tried as much as possible; the Plateau State University Bokkos has resumed and very soon, the polytechnic is also reopening. Courses are being accredited in tertiary institutions as well as recruitment. So, we have done tremendously well with labor and that is why they gave the governor award and workers themselves christened him, “Governor Alert”.”

He added that plans are being put in place to clear every arrear before the end of the administration.

Addressing the complaints by the family of deceased civil servants who died in active service over non-payment of their death benefits, Hon. Dan said some of them have been paid while some are yet to get their payment.

“Every month, some amount of money is set aside for the payment of gratuity, death benefits, and pension. We have made attempts to get a firm that will pay the death benefits of these workers. We engaged United Capital and they have undertaken to pay the gratuity and the government will pay them via IPSO little by little at a discounted rate. We had a discussion with people that were involved and we all agreed that it must be at a discounted rate. There is a committee that was set up and is working right now to ensure that the issue is resolved.”

It is our intention that we should be able to pay this death benefits and gratuity to the families of deceased workers. If we are unable to pay, the people that are coming after us should be able to do that. We have a document that we are going to present to them but to say that we have not paid or have not made any effort at all is not true.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

News

New leaders, new fund: Sequoia has raised $7B to expand its AI bets

info

Published

on

By

Screen Shot 2023 01 13 at 3.33.43 PM.png

Few venture firms have bet more aggressively on AI than Sequoia Capital, and it isn’t slowing down.

The Silicon Valley stalwart has raised roughly $7 billion for a new fund, according to Bloomberg. Sequoia declined TechCrunch’s request for comment. The money will go toward what the firm calls its “expansion strategy” — essentially its late-stage investing arm, focused on the U.S. and Europe — and it’s nearly double Sequoia’s last comparable fund, a $3.4 billion vehicle raised in 2022.

That growth in fund size reflects something bigger: late-stage investing has taken on an entirely new meaning in the AI era. Companies can now scale at a speed and cost that would have been unimaginable a decade ago, and the firms backing them have to keep pace.

The money signals where Sequoia sees the future: deeply embedded in AI, from the giants building the underlying technology to the startups putting it to work. The firm has backed two of the most prominent players in the AI race — OpenAI originally and, more recently, Anthropic — both of which are reportedly eyeing public listings in 2026. The development that could mean a significant payday for the firm.

Sequoia isn’t only swinging for the foundational AI heavyweights, however. It has also placed bets on other buzzy startups, including Physical Intelligence, the Bay Area robotics startup, and Factory, which builds AI agents for enterprise engineering teams.

The fundraise is also the first major capital raise under Sequoia’s new leadership, with Alfred Lin and Pat Grady now serving as co-stewards of the 54-year-old firm.

Techcrunch event

San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026

Continue Reading

News

Factory hits $1.5B valuation to build AI coding for enterprises

info

Published

on

By

GettyImages 1356382582.jpg

More than three years after the emergence of generative AI, AI-assisted coding remains by far the most popular and lucrative use case for the technology.

Although multiple companies — including Anthropic, maker of Claude Code, as well as Cursor and Cognition — are already vying for dominance, investors believe there is room for at least one more player.

On Wednesday, Factory, a startup developing AI agents for enterprise engineering teams, announced it had raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, and Blackstone. Keith Rabois, a managing director at Khosla Ventures, joined the startup’s board.

Factory founder Matan Grinberg told the Wall Street Journal that the company’s key differentiator is its ability to switch between different foundation models, such as Anthropic’s Claude or Chinese AI startup DeepSeek. However, startups like Cursor also don’t rely on a single model to generate code.

Factory’s customers include engineering teams at Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, and Palo Alto Networks.

The startup was founded in 2023 after Grinberg, then a PhD student at UC Berkeley, cold-emailed Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire. The two bonded over mutual academic interest. (Maguire’s PhD from Caltech is in the same area of physics Grinberg was studying.)

Maguire convinced Grinberg to drop out and launch Factory, with Sequoia backing the startup at the seed stage.

Techcrunch event

San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026

Continue Reading

Trending