WHY WE ARE FACING THE CRISIS OF NON-PAYMENT OF STAFF SALARIES IN KADUNA STATE!
WHY WE ARE FACING THE CRISIS OF NON-PAYMENT OF STAFF SALARIES IN KADUNA STATE!
By:
Nurudeen Dauda
1st July, 2016
nurudeendauda24@gmail.com
nurudeendauda24@yahoo.com
nurudeendauda.blogspot.com
It is a tragedy for one’s salaries payment to be delayed or his “Job” to be lost!
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 all the 30,000 workers without regular salaries yet they say workers are owed salaries! Of course, non-payment of salaries is too bad!
HOW AND WHY WE ARE FACING THE CRISIS OF NON-PAYMENTS OF STAFF SALARIES IN KADUNA STATE ESPECIALLY TEACHERS’ SALARIES:
It is highly regrettable for someone to work for Six (6) or Eight (8) months without pay; I do share in the pain of those unpaid workers. Accept my heart-felt concern! I stand to be corrected where applicable. The on-going” nonpayment” or “payment arrears” of Kaduna state PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS as well as LOCAL COUNCIL WORKERS was a “Time-Bomb” set up as far back as 1999. It is official that from that period to date Eight (8) Metropolitan Local governments (LGs) out of the Twenty-Three (23) LGs in the state could not pay their salaries after receiving their monthly allocations from the federation account and Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) perhaps due to “OVERSTAFFING” OR GHOST WORKERS. The issue of “Capital project” does not even arise in this situation! LGs’s employees include not primary school teachers but also Health, Environmental, traditional rulers and administrative workers etc. The problem continued throughout the successive administrations in the state.
Modern Governance everywhere whether“Socialists” or a “Capitalist” state is about efficiency and sustainability. What the successive administrations did in order to solve the problem affecting the staff of those unviable LGs was to borrow from some LGs that then always had “SURPLUSES” in order to pay them their salaries. With that crisis management style only God knows when those 8 LGs will pay back the money borrowed from the other LGs. The previous administrations had sometimes in 2012 or so ordered for a state audit of the 23 LGs’s monthly “wage bills”(salaries) and having obtained the actual salary of each of the 23 LGs the following month the state government began releasing only salaries to all the 23 LGs instead of their “total allocation”.
The crisis of declaring “DEFICITS” by those 8 LGs was when the Crude oil was sold at above $100 per barrel which meant there was “BIG ALLOCATION” to the LGs then compare to now “WHEN THE ALLOCATION HAS REDUCED DRASTICALLY” yet they had “deficits” then. Those 8 LGs that were declaring “deficits” with crude oil sold at above $100 one imagined what their financial position would be now at LOW CRUDE PRICE? The question to further ask is with crude oil sold at its lower price will those LGs that were hitherto declaring “Surplus” still have “SURPLUS” to give out? The answer is obviously NO! Assuming they still have surplus to give! When are they going to get their monies back? Is this crisis management style sustainable? The answer is obviously NO! Which bank will continue to give the state loan to pay salaries?
According to 2006 population census Kaduna state has 6million people. Also, according to available records there are about 27,000 (0.45% of 6million) states government workers whose monthly salaries is N2.2BILLION. In the month of April, Kaduna state received N2.4BILLION as state allocation. We have about 60,000 workers (1% of 6million) of the 23 local Governments who received N2.1billion; for their salaries to be paid the government needed to borrowN300million. Where is the money for capital projects for the 98% who are not Civil servants? Is it right for less than 2% to go with 98% of revenue and leave the 98% to share 2% revenue. Check www.finance.gov.ng for monthly allocation to all the 36 states and local governments.
Our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is very low! Nobody wants to pay tax! If a government pays all workers their salaries as and when due without “CAPITAL PROJECT” is still a NON- PERFORMING GOVERNOR. The previous government pays salaries regularly perhaps due to “HIGH REVENUE” but they did not “EXECUTIVE CAPITAL PROJECTS” that is why we sent them out of government.
Let’s think of the best way of solving the crisis. God’s will I write on my suggestion soon!
May God bless Kaduna state!