LAGOS—Huge expenditures on capital projects and sundry overhead
have been identified as part of the reasons many state governments
in Nigeria are unable to pay their workers’ salaries for many months
now, Vanguard investigations have revealed.
About 18 state governments in the country currently owe their
workers salaries for periods ranging from two to 11 months as at
the end of May, 2015.
States and indebtedness
Some of the effected states include Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi,
Benue, Cross River, Ekiti, Imo, Katsina, Kogi, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo,
Plateau, Rivers and Zamfara.
Vanguard also gathered that the states have mortgaged their
federation account allocations to contractors executing various
capital projects by signing irrevocable payment orders with various
banks. As a result, payments to contractors and other debt
instruments are deducted at source and have become first line
charge on their lean resources.
To compound the states’ woes, their internally generated revenues
are not growing concurrently to match their exposures to these
revenue outflows.
In addition to these funds mismatch, the states have had to
prioritise sundry overheads especially those relating to services and
to political office holders above salary obligations to their workers.
See details inside Financial Vanguard from Pages 21-44.
Resign now, Omisore tells Aregbesola
In the light of the crisis, the former Chairman, Senate Committee on
Finance and Appropriation, Senator Iyiola Omisore, has called on
Governor Rauf Aregbesola to immediately resign his position and
allow more competent hands to run the affairs of the state before it
is grounded.
Speaking with newsmen in Osogbo, Omisore argued that for
Aregbesola to have admitted that the problem of Osun State was
beyond his capacity, he expected him to have thereafter
communicated this to the state House of Assembly and honourably
resigned.
His words: “Osun is now a failed state because of the financial
recklessness of the governor. I really appreciate the fact that he
confessed the present state of Osun affairs is beyond him, and he
should immediately throw in the towel.
“Nearly all commercial banks in Osun are being owed one form of
loan or the other. The matter has reached a stage that the
committee of bankers in the state at their meeting resolved that no
bank should loan this government any more money. They are also
waiting for remittances into state’s coffers.
“As soon as money comes in, they withdraw it. The situation calls
for sober reflections, and we will also look at ways we are going to
help our people in a manner that will not ridicule them.”
Commenting further, Omisore said the immediate past federal
administration did not owe Osun or any state statutory allocation or
any other funds due to it, and alleged that, apart from inflated
contracts, Aregbesola also spent a huge sum on the presidential
project of the All Progressive Congress, APC, and was among the
five highest donating states.
You are not an alternative, Aregbesola retorts
However, in a quick response, Aregbesola said: ”I will reply Omisore
the way Yoruba people will put it, that ‘Tóju akata balewo, enu adie
ko laotigbo, meaning: Omisore is not competent to comment about
alleged miss-governance by Aregbesola.
“Given the tendency that Omisore represents, even if Osun were to
come under the most incompetent of public administrators, he
would still not be the alternative that Osun people want to live with.
An Omisore governorship is better imagined than experienced.
“Is it in his obvious lack of knowledge of what public administration
and selfless service to the people is or that he represents a party
that is actually responsible for Nigeria’s present predicament
through its 16 years of misrule?
“We are not surprised that the unpaid salary has made Omisore to
find his voice after his fruitless search for a non-existent mandate.
We do not expect anything better from a man who at the best of
times, still fabricated lies against the Aregbesola administration all
in his desperation to get the acceptance of the Osun people.
“Aregbesola is not reckless and the records and evidence abound to
establish this fact. The National Bureau of Statistics, the Debt
Management Office of the Presidency, and other agencies that
operated under the PDP, could not find anything against Aregbesola
other than statistics that confirmed how the Osun economy has
been improved.
“We recognise the hardship unpaid salaries can bring and we are
appealing to our people for understanding and assuring them this
will soon come to an end. But that is not to say that the likes of
Omisore have any ideas that are capable of helping our people.
‘Stop deceiving Ekiti workers’
In Ekiti, the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state and the
Ekiti State Government, were yesterday engaged in war of words
over the delay in the payment of workers’ salaries.
While the APC asked Governor Ayodele Fayose to stop deceiving the
state workers with failed promises to pay their salaries, the state
government, in a swift reaction, described APC’s claim as shameful,
saying the party should stop acting shamelessly.
The state Publicity Secretary of APC, Mr. Taiwo Olatubosun, had in
a statement accused the governor of deliberate falsehood on the
state’s financial status, saying the governor had no excuse to owe
workers’ salaries.
The party’s spokesperson, also faulted the perceived endless
workers verification exercise designed to keep faith with the
government, describing it as a wicked tactic to secure workers’
cooperation.
He said: “We have heard the governor say that the state was broke
and we can’t find merit in that declaration. This is because of the
savings made from all the empowerment schemes cancelled by the
governor; the thousands of workers that were sacked; and drastic
cuts in the allowances and running grants of workers, including
traditional rulers, would have saved the state millions of Naira.”
Olatubosun noted that Governor Kayode Fayemi carried out
verification exercise only once through biometric auditing that
brought sanity to wage payment system.
He wondered why after Fayose had carried out three verification
exercises within seven months, the governor was still subjecting
workers to an unnecessary verification contraption.
He noted that “we in APC pity the workers, including pregnant
women, who queue endlessly in the sun waiting to do this ill-
conceived verification exercise. The governor assured that 48 hours
after the exercise, the cleared workers would receive their pay. But
two months after some workers completed the exercise, the
governor has refused to pay, instead he is keeping workers on
queue for hours in the sun for the salary that would not come. As a
result, the workers have become confused, dejected and
despondent.”
“Explain how you spend Ekiti money”
He urged the governor to come clean on how he had been spending
Ekiti money, saying rhetoric on state’s indebtedness was a callous
way to deny the workers their entitlements while the governor was
enjoying his personal life.
He said: “Ekiti people have heard how N650 million is being
deducted from source to pay the governor’s election contractors.
For six months, Fayose didn’t pay kobo on the purported Fayemi’s
over-bloated debts. Savings in millions are made from cuts in
workers and Obas’ allowances and running grants, including the
savings in millions from thousands that lost their jobs. Social
security for 20,000 elders was also cancelled by the governor.”
Also, he said “many youths empowerment schemes that cost
Fayemi millions of naira were cancelled by Fayose. Street lights
supply is now for three hours daily. Fayemi ran it for 12 hours.
Fayose has stopped funding security agencies which has led to high
crime rate in the state.”
Speaking further, he said “almost all the ongoing road constructions
were fully paid for by Fayemi while Fayose cannot claim to have
awarded any contract. The dividends of democracy Fayose has
given to Ekiti people in the last 8 months is brigandage, thuggery,
blocking of highways, kidnapping and crushing of the judiciary and
the legislative arms of government.”
“He collected N22billion refund on federal projects while he also
collected N2billion Ecological Fund which Fayemi did a lot to access
without success. The question is, what is the governor doing with
Ekiti money?” Olatubosun queried.
The party appealed to Fayose’s election contractors to spare a
thought for the welfare of Ekiti workers, pleading that they should
give the governor some moratorium to enable him pay workers
salary.
Faulting the governor and his aides for making reference to Osun
State over salary payment default, the party argued that while
Governor Rauf Aregbesola had many development and
infrastructure projects he could point to, same could not be said of
Fayose who sing-song was always on debts.
APC should stop being shameless – Ekiti Govt
In its reaction, Ekiti State government has described as shameful,
the persistent claim by the Ekiti APC, that Governor Fayose was
deceiving workers with the verification exercise, saying the party
should stop acting shamelessly.
The governor’s Special Assistant on Public Communications and
New Media, Mr Lere Olayinka, said over 1,000 fake workers have
already been discovered on the payroll that ought not to be
receiving salary.
Olayinka disclosed that “over 250 workers that are already dead
have been receiving salary through the e-payment system
introduced and contracted to a Lagos based company by the
immediate past APC government.”
The governor’s aide, who urged the APC to first remove the timber
in its eyes before aspiring to remove the toothpicks in other
people’s eyes, said the party should prevail on its governors in
neighbouring States to pay workers that are owed as much as right
months salary.
He said: “We commenced workers verification exercise last month
and we have kept faith with our covenant with the workers by
paying the April salary of those already cleared. As at today, we
have discovered more than 1,000 people that were receiving salary
fraudulently, out of which over 250 are dead. The over 1,000 fake
workers have now been deleted from the payroll and the exercise is
still ongoing.”
On the claim by the APC that the State government received N22
billion from the Federal Government as refund for construction of
federal roads in the State, Olayinka said “only a demented mind
would believe that a refund of N22 billion was made by the federal
government on N11 billion road projects.”
NLC sends SOS to Buhari
NIGERIA Labour Congress, NLC, has said it has sent the names of
state governments that are owing workers months of unpaid
salaries and other benefits to the President Muhammad Buhari for
immediate action.
General Secretary of NLC, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson, told Vanguard
yesterday that Congress sen the names through the Transition
Committee of the President.
He said “what we had done was to set up task forces according to
zones and wrote to the states affected to commence action. A
number of states actually took actions which led to for example in
Plateau State where the new government invited the leaders of NLC
in the state for negotiation.
At the end, the new government agreed to pay two months out of
the arrears and that the remaining would be addressed later. They
signed and agreement.
Similar things are going on in other affected states. However, we
have complex names of the affected states and sent to the
transition committee of the President. That is where we are now.”
“For instance, Ado-Iworoko-Ifaki Road on which they claimed federal
government refunded N22 billion was awarded by the Engr Segun
Oni government for N7.4 billion. In 2013, the APC government of Dr
Kayode Fayemi increased it to N11 billion, claiming the increment
was to ensure quick completion of the project.”
“So, How could federal government have refunded N22 billion on a
N11 billion road project? These people just love to tell lies, hoping
that they can again lie their way into the hearts of Ekiti people, but
the people already know them and their stock in trade,” he said.
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