BETWEEN WORKERS UNPAID SALARIES IN KADUNA STATE AND THE BEST KNOWN MANAGEMENT CRISIS TOOLS: MY HUMBLE SUGGESTION!
BETWEEN WORKERS UNPAID SALARIES IN KADUNA STATE AND THE BEST KNOWN MANAGEMENT CRISIS TOOLS: MY HUMBLE SUGGESTION!
By:
Nurudeen Dauda
1st July, 2016
nurudeendauda24@gmail.com
nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com
nurudeendauda.blogspot.com
Please have the patience and read to the last paragraph for MY suggestion!
It is highly unacceptable for someone to work for Six (6) or Eight (8) months without pay; I do share in the “pains” of those unpaid workers. Accept my heart-felt concern! I do not support losing “Jobs” whatsoever! But if it has become absolutely “unavoidable” it should be done with human face! However, which of the following two (2) situations is better between employing 30,000 workers that you cannot pay regularly and reducing them to 20,000 which can be paid as and when due? Some people will like the government to retain the 30,000 workers without regular salaries yet they say workers are owed salaries! Of course, non-payment of salaries is too bad!
The issue of non-payment of salaries is now a “NATIONAL PROBLEM”, of course, that does not justify it any way. 27 states out of the 36 states including “OIL PRODUCING STATES” are finding it very difficult to pay salaries as and when due even before the coming of APC’s government. It is not only Kaduna State that has the problems of “nonpayment” of salaries? Yet that does not justify or support it! “It is simplistic as well as lazy academics to say that workers were not paid their salaries, but it is an “intellect “to ask why were not paid?”. Why don’t you ask how much your state get from federal Allocation before and now that the price of crude oil has collapsed from as “high” as $115 per barrel in June,2014 to as “low” as $27 in January,2016? Why don’t you ask how much do my state need to pay staff salaries every month? Why don’t you ask how much will remain for the remaining 98% Non Civil Servants for capital projects such as : roads, schools, and hospitals etc.?
Was it “WICKEDNESS” that made some states owed their staff salaries? Well! In my understanding, is the collapse in their “REVENUE” due to the collapse in the price of “CRUDE OIL” which is about 95% of their sources of REVENUES? Who pays tax? Only the Civil servants pay tax perhaps simply because it is deducted from the source!
As a student of personnel management the “Hard Truth” is that generally speaking if an employer is faced with the crisis of “OVERSTAFFING” or “REDUNDANCY” “FALLS IN REVENUE” there are three (3) basic approaches to solve the problem: (1) Lay-off; (2)Salary Reductions; and (3) Retrenchment. In simple language “LAY-OFF” means a situation whereby some of your workers are asked to temporary stop without payment of salaries till there are “Jobs” for them or the situation improves. “SALARY REDUCTION” simply means REDUCING STAFF SALARIES and “RETRENCHMENT” which means to tell your staff to leave his “JOB permanently.”
In view of the situation we find ourselves, if it has become absolutely in possible to maintain the existing numbers of WORKERS in the states and to have a reasonable amount of money left for CAPITAL PROJECTS the government should and must apply one of the above-mentioned MANAGEMENT’S TOOLS FOR EMPLOYERS-EMPLOYEES SALARIES CRISIS MANAGEMENT.
SUGGESTED SOLUTION:
However, in my humble opinion, the last option seems to be reasonable; therefore, in doing so the Government must look for a “Soft landing” with minimum or no damage. If I were the governor I would identify the number of staff that are not required and trained them in various “SKILLS”AND “BUSINESSES” thereafter pay them all their “ENTITLEMENTS INSTANTLY” and make the state government be a GUARANTOR to them in order to secure “CHEAP LOANS” from the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Bank of Industry (BOI) and the CBN’s Loans for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMSEs) ‘to START UP THEIR BUSINESSES. I advise that the government of Kaduna state uses its laudable initiative for “Job creation” in collaboration with “KADUNA BUSINESS SCHOOL” and re-engage them.
May God Bless Kaduna!