I received dozens of reactions to last week’s column several of which were heart-wrenching, but I have space for just two this week. The ...
I received dozens of
reactions to last week’s column several of which were heart-wrenching, but I
have space for just two this week. The first is from the Kwara State government
and the second is from a private citizen in Ilorin.
The Kwara State Government has dismissed as false and
unfounded [an op-ed] linking the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki with the
salary crises in state-owned Colleges of Education.
In the statement issued in Ilorin, the Kwara State
Government dissociated the Senate President from the salary arrears at the
affected institutions, and restated that Saraki neither controls nor interferes
with the management of state government funds or institutions. The government
therefore challenged anyone with contrary proof to publish it.
The State Government blamed its inability to pay subventions
to the affected tertiary institutions on the drop in monthly federal
allocations to the state from N3.2b to N1.8b.
Explaining further, the statement added that N1.7b of the
amount goes towards the payment of secondary school teachers, civil servants,
pensions and gratuity per month, stressing that the remainder is inadequate to
cover the N500m monthly subventions to parastatals, including
revenue-generating tertiary institutions.
According to the statement, the government was therefore
forced to suspend the payment of subventions to parastatals while expecting
tertiary institutions and other revenue-generating agencies to pay workers from
their internally-generated revenue in view of the huge drop in monthly federal
allocation to the state.
On the N4.3b Federal Government bail out to the state, the
statement emphasised that the money was used to clear the two months’ arrears
owed to state civil servants in August 2015. It added that the Federal
Government was yet to release the bail out component for the payment of
subvention to the tertiary institutions and other parastatals in the state.
The state government also denied cutting salaries at the
Colleges of Education by 30 per cent. It clarified that the state government
was financially-constrained to implement only 70 per cent of the Consolidated
Tertiary Education and Institution Salary Structure, a nationally-agreed salary
structure for tertiary institutions which is however subject to states’
capacity to pay.
The statement added that despite its lean finances, the
government had increased subventions to tertiary institutions in the state
thrice in the last four years but was currently unable to ensure regular
payment due to the huge drop in monthly federal allocation to the state.
Mr. Muyideen Akorede,
Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications to the State Governor,
Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed.
The crisis of unpaid salaries in Nigeria has reached an epic
proportion. My brother and fellow Kwaran, Dr. Farooq Kperogi, was sufficiently
concerned that he wrote on this issue as it relates to our state. In reaction
to Farooq’s op-ed, the Kwara state government recently issued a statement to
the media and gave two reasons for its inability to pay its workers:
1. A drop in federal allocation
2. Revenue generating state agencies are mandated to pay
their own staff members
On both counts, the Kwara state government is being clever
by half. On the first count, if the reason for the inability of the state
government to pay its workers is hinged on a drop in the amount of money it
receives from the federation account, then the raison d'être for the existence of Kwara as a state is null
and void. If the Kwara state government has to wait on the federal government,
then we may conclude that the Kwara state government is an appendage of the
federal government, not an independent self-governing state within a republic.
If that is the case, then the office of the state governor is unnecessary in
Kwara state and perhaps we should push for a constitutional amendment that will
make Kwara a department of the federal government with a minister sent to
oversee its affairs. This, my friends, is what the Kwara state government is
saying indirectly if we are to take its claims about its inability to pay its
workers due to a drop in federal allocation.
On its second claim of granting autonomy to revenue
generating state agencies to pay its staff members from funds so generated –
this is another clever-by-half escapist reason for its inability to pay. Let us
be sincere: how can any responsible government ask the Kwara state water
corporation to pay its own workers in a state where the majority makes plans
for their own water supply and in areas where the state supplies the water –
many residents consider water supply as a social good that they wouldn’t like
to pay for. I am not suggesting that Kwarans shouldn’t pay for water but the
reality is that the few that do get water from the state may not necessarily be
paying for it. In any case, even if they were paying, the payments would not be
near enough to pay the staff members of the Kwara state water corporation.
The same situation exists for the Kwara state colleges of
education, the state Polytechnic, and University. All of these institutions are
not your traditional business concerns that must - as matter of rule - turn a
profit. Perhaps, we should ask if the Kwara state government is embarking on a
policy of commercializing education and other public services in Kwara state.
It is a globally accepted practice for state governments to have some sort of
annual grant or subvention to institutions like the Water Corporation, schools
and colleges in the interest of public good. Why is the Kwara state government
shirking one of the most basic responsibilities of state governments?
Kwara state governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, was quoted several
times as saying that the business of government is too serious to be left in
the hands of the opposition PDP during the last election; it is a
self-indictment that Ahmed is in his fifth year as governor and things, rather
than improving in the state of harmony, have taken a turn for the worse.
If Ahmed and crowd will seat down and face the serious
business of governing, cut waste, reduce their own personal comfort,
incentivize agriculture, support small business owners meaningfully through
soft loans and a reduction in taxes, not a tax increase, (small business owners
will create jobs and add to income tax) and ensure transparency in financial
transactions, Kwara state will be able to pay all categories of workers under
its government.
Abdulmumin Yinka Ajia
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