The Federal Government spent N165 billion monthly on salaries, Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, said on Tuesday.

According to her, N8 billion from the monthly pay roll of public servants has been saved due to various strategies introduced by the government.

Adeosun, spoke at a Town Hall/Policy Dialogue for Good Governance organised by the Alumni Association of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies.

The minister said when the President Muhammadu Buhari government came into power, there were 1.2 million public servants in the civil service.

According to her, other countries are also experiencing similar economic challenges like Nigeria.

She said, “Change can be extremely painful, but we must change.’’

Adeosun said the FG had no choice than to borrow to invest in the country’s infrastructure, explaining that this was the only way to create jobs.

“We have a very conservative borrowing programme; we will borrow conservatively so we don’t burden the future generation.

“We must borrow, not like in the past when loans were taken to pay salaries; we will this time, borrow to invest and build our infrastructures.’’

The meeting, which was attended by the Ministers of Agriculture and Rural Development, Power, Works and Housing, Finance, Information and Culture, Budget and National Planning and Foreign Affairs, was the sixth in the series of ongoing town hall meetings.

Azeez