Workers in Benue state are not happy over the inability of
the state government to pay them backlog of unpaid salaries and have therefore
embarked on an indefinite strike....
Why did the government allow the issue to
degenerate to this level? It is unfortunate that we have found ourselves where we
are today due to the numerous challenges but this situation is not limited to
Benue state, it affects the entire country. Nigeria went through a recession
and just came out of it, though it is still very fragile but we are trusting
and believing God that things will work and the economy will blossom and grow
and things will be better. We took over power at a time that the main source of
revenue to the states went down as a result of the drastic fall in oil prices.
Let me also say that I inherited N69billion arrears of salaries, pensions and
gratuity. It was a very big problem but government is a continuum and we had to
work with it. And the wage bill then was around N8.2billion without teachers’
minimum wage. When we came we said teachers should ideally be treated better
than any other worker because of the strategic roles they play in the society,
especially in the area of moulding the character of our children. And so, we
said there shouldn’t be salary disparity, they should also enjoy minimum wage
with the hope that things will improve and we went ahead and implemented it,
only to discover that what was coming in was not enough to cater for just
payment of salaries right from the onset. So, with the various interventions of
the federal government and the borrowing, we thought we could redeem the
situation to a level, but we could not redeem the whole situation. Now paying a
wage bill which is N8.2billion including the additional responsibilities that
came on our finances from the minimum wage of teachers which was close to
N300million became a challenge. Through various screenings, we were able to
save up to N700million, so today we have around N7.8billion as the wage bill of
the state. This includes pensions and overheads every month. Now, what comes in
initially every month from the Federation Account was an average of N5billion
for both local governments and state. But things started improving and today we
are talking of an average of N6billion as what comes in. As for the IGR, when
we inaugurated the Benue Internal Revenue Service, BIRS, Board things started
moving well and we were doing an average of N600million monthly, but there was
huge outcry from traditional rulers, the clergy and the people over taxes. As a
listening government we took the advice of stakeholders and decided to mellow
down and this also affected our IGR. So take it that you have an average of
N6billion and you are just settling salaries alone in the state. That means we
will be recording a deficit of N2.8billion every month. But as you know, there
are several other issues. You must service your loans, you must ensure that
government operates and works and there must be attention to security issues.
You can imagine having N6billion to service debts and also do all these and
government officials must run government in order to keep the government going.
And there must be attention to certain emergency things that might crop up. So
all these are the things we have to contend with. With the figure I mentioned
earlier, if you have to pay salaries and do other important things, the deficit
will obviously be more than that. But the truth of the matter is that there was
a problem which my predecessor accepted and also warned me before he handed
over to me. During the negotiation of the last minimum wage before we came in,
the salaries were raised to a level that government could not afford. That was
the negotiation. So it’s a problem that we inherited. When we came in, we saw
this challenge and we called labour leaders and told them that there was no way
we could continue to fund them in this manner. It was therefore our collective
agreement to bring labour into our Joint Financial Allocation Committee so that
everything that is done is known to all because we felt that in order to
protect our integrity and be on the same page with labour, we needed them to
know what is coming in and what is going out. So we had proposed that in view
of these difficulties we should pay 50 percent salaries to all categories of
workers but the workers preferred that because they had commitments with their
full salaries, they opted that full salaries should be paid and that it should
be alternated. Allocations of two months should be put together to pay full
month’s salary and the other one could be in arrears. This was our agreement
and that was what we have been doing and with the understanding of labour we
have been able to manage it well. As for the option to reduce salaries, it was
not tenable because there is high rate of inflation and I honestly feel that
what they are getting is not even enough. And so reducing the salary was not an
option. But at the same time, the other option was retrenching or reducing the
workforce. But for Benue state that is a civil service state where the economy
is driven by the civil service, it is very difficult to talk of retrenchment.
Presently, we need a wage bill of around N4billion to be able to contend with
the challenges that we have and then move forward. When you talk about
reduction of the wage bill, are you saying you intend to reduce the salaries of
workers? I did not say I intend to reduce salaries, that is an option that is
available. But for us we felt that with the high inflation, reducing now will
cause more hardship for the people. But we are hoping that things will be
better so we will continue to pay as we met it. But it’s really high and much
higher than several states in Nigeria. We had a seven day warning strike before
this indefinite strike, what efforts did the government make to avert it? We
met when there was a warning strike and we also met after the warning strike
and we appealed to workers to come back and continue the same way we were going
about it over a year ago because going on strike will not help. . The Deputy
Governor’s committee is working and we are hoping that at the end, there will
be substantial reduction in the wage bill. At the last meeting I held with
labour union representative from the national secretariat we agreed on what to
do. Our agreement was that we can put together the allocation of September and
pay one full month salary to all category of staff in Benue state. I was
therefore surprised that the President of NLC, whose representative was at the
meeting where an agreement was reached had to come himself and directed that
workers should down tools. We will continue to dialogue, I have set up a
committee headed by the Secretary to the State Government, including the Head
of Service and other government functionaries to continue to negotiate with
workers. We are discussing with financial institutions including PENCOM on how
we can find a way out of this. We feel very strongly that for us to have a
sustainable wage bill we must find a way of reducing the wage bill from where
it is today. In doing that, those who are legitimately employed and are also
working and have schedules should not entertain any fear but those who are
ghost workers or those who found themselves in government and are not doing the
work but are just collecting salaries will have no choice but to leave because
I’m already pushed to the wall and we don’t know where to go. Do you know that
so many people are residing in parts of the country but they come here to draw
salaries. I know of a chief who has 15 wives with over 20 children some of who
are in secondary schools and tertiary institutions and they are all drawing
salaries. These are areas we must touch so that those people who are working
legitimately and are doing their jobs can get their salaries as at when due.
But those who have nothing to do working with government should find their way
out. So we will do everything while we are talking to other agencies. We are
committed to ensuring that we reduce the wage bill through a genuine process
that will not victimize anyone, that will help to give us a wage bill that is sustainable.
But honestly, I feel pained, I’m not sleeping either because there is no way I
can have my peace when I have a challenge like this affecting everybody in
Benue state including my own family who are also on my neck to ensure that
salaries are paid, that is how traumatized I am over the matter.
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