No fewer than 70,000 civil servants in 30
Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government have yet
to receive their three months’ salaries.
The Secretary-General of the Association
of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, Mr. Alade Lawal, made this known
just as investigations by The PUNCH revealed that states like Osun, Oyo, Benue and Plateau are owing their workers between three and four months’ salaries.
Prominent among the ministries listed by
Lawal during an interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on
Monday are Education, Works, Labour and Productivity, Mines and Power.
He said, “About eight MDAs have been
owing workers their salaries from October. The number rose to 11 in
November and in December, hit 30, including departments and agencies.”
Asked what was responsible for the
increase in the number of MDAs indebted to their workers, Lawal said
some government officials involved in salary payments were engaged in a
game of deceit.
He said, “They are telling us that some
of the MDAs are involved in expenditure items different from salaries.
They said they were spending on items not related to salaries. But that
is not supposed to be the fault of the workers.
“There should be synergy in government
whereby they have to work in tandem with the Budget Office and Office of
the Accountant-General of the Federation. They know what they are
doing, they are muddling up the whole exercise and suffering workers
unnecessarily.”
He said the government had no tangible reason for not paying the workers, having promised to do so before December 24.
“As of December 22, they promised us
that before Wednesday, December 24, these payments would be made. But as
I am talking to you now, affected workers have not been paid.
“The Ministry of Works alone has about
26,000 workers. If you add them together, they can’t be less than 70,000
workers that are affected.
“We have been liaising with our people.
But you know, this is a festive period and it has affected some of the
trade union actions we intended taking. The promise that they made last
week which they also told the press that they would pay before
Christmas, we thought they were serious about it. But latest
developments indicate that they are deceiving us.”
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, had in a statement by her Special Adviser on
Communication, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, on December 22 promised that the
salary arrears of civil servants in MDAs would be paid before Christmas.
The PUNCH reported on Monday
that civil servants in states like Osun, Oyo, Benue, Plateau and Abia
had a bleak Christmas as they are being owed between two and four-month
salaries.
In Osun State for instance, the Chairman
of state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Saka Adesiyan, told
one of our correspondents in Osogbo that workers were being owed
October, November and December salaries.
The Public Relations Officer of the
Nigeria Union of Teachers, Mr. Boye Abolarin, also confirmed that
secondary school teachers were being owed October, November and
December salaries.
Abolarin said that workers were subjected to hardship while politicians were feeding fat especially during the Yuletide.
Governor Rauf Aregbesola, however, blamed the development on the dwindling monthly allocations to the state.
Aregbesola, in a statement made
available to our correspondent by his media aide, Semiu Okanlawon,
said, “Either at the federal or at the state level, where is it that
workers are being paid as and when due?
“We thought this situation will not last
long. That was why we used our strategic reserve to augment salaries for
one year. All our savings were spent on augmentation of salaries.”
In Oyo, the state NLC Chairman, Basiru
Alli, said that the November and December salaries of some workers
were being awaited.
He said, “I will not say that government
in the state is owing us, it is actually delaying payment of workers
salaries. As of now, not all workers have been paid November salaries.
Some are still waiting for theirs. We do not know when the December
salary will come.”
Asked what efforts the NLC was making to
ensure all the workers got paid, Alli said that they were told by the
government that dwindling allocations from the Federal Government were
responsible.
“We hold consultations with the
government from time to time and what we were told the last time was
that it was not a deliberate attempt to delay the salaries but due to
dwindling allocations, the state had to manage its resources.”
But the Special Adviser to Governor
Abiola Ajimobi on Media, Dr. Festus Adedayo, said that all workers had
been paid November salaries.
He said, “The state government is
passionate about staff welfare. We are handicapped by the dwindling
allocations from the Federal Government. We have a wage bill of N4.9bn
but the allocation we have this month was N2.9bn. Last month, the state
got N3.1bn from the Federal Government. We are working hard to ensure
workers are paid the December salaries.”
The situation in Benue State is not better as the government is also currently owing three months’ salaries.
Before the Yuletide, the government
owed workers five months’ salaries but it paid two months’ salaries at
different intervals.
A civil servant, who pleaded anonymity told The PUNCH
that a day to Christmas, some of his colleagues received alert for one
month salary while on Monday, others received alert for their second
salary payment.
The civil servant explained that they could not enjoy the Yuletide due to the debts they had incurred.
He said, “What the state government paid to us was used to settle debts .
“
Mind you, we from the mainstream civil
service are not on any industrial action but the state is currently
owing us three month-salaries. I can tell you that the situation is
worse for lecturers as they have been on half salaries for five months.”
Investigations by The PUNCH in
Abia State indicated that while civil servants in the ministries had
received their November and December salaries, their counterparts in
the parastatals were being owed some months .
The Chairman, NLC in the state,
Sylvanus Eye, said workers in the parastatals had not been paid November
and December salaries.
He added that teachers as well as council workers were also being owed arrears of two months.
The state leadership of NLC had about
three weeks ago picketed the office of the Accountant General over the
salary arrears of the parastatal workers and for allegedly witholding
check- off dues of the union.
When contacted, the Accountant General,
Gabriel Onyendilefu, said that “the function of payment is dependent on
available cash”.
He explained that in the past five
months, the state’s allocations from the federation accounts had been
dwindling following the constant fall in the price of crude oil.
In Kogi State, local governments’ workers complained that they only received half of their salaries for October and November.
They alleged that they still had some backlogs of salaries that were not fully paid.
A source, who pleaded anonymity, said the
Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji
Abubakar Sadiq, had informed them that they would receive alert of their
December payment on Tuesday(today).
The NLC Chairman, Plateau State chapter,
Mr. Jibrin Bancir, told one of our correspondents that the government
was owing many workers four months arrears of salaries and leave
grants.
The worst hit are local government workers who have not been paid for about seven months.
Meanwhile, the NLC has directed its state
chapters to furnish it with actual state of affairs in connection with
the salary arrears.
Noting that it was criminal for any
government to owe workers their salaries, the NLC said it would take a
firm decision in a couple of days on the issue.
The General Secretary of the congress,
Mr. Peter Ozo-Eson, stated this in a telephone interview with one of our
correspondents in Ilorin on Monday.
He said, “We have not taken a firm
decision on what to do until we get actual information on which state,
what is owed, how many months and the actual amount from all the state
councils. We hope that within a couple of days, these reports would have
got to us and we would take a firm position on them.
“We would rely on the reports that we get
from our state chapters. We are asking our state to advise us on salary
payments and if there are debts. Based on that we are going to collate
take appropriate actions in relation to getting those salaries paid.
“We condemn any state government that is
owing arrears of salaries because the workers must be the first to be
paid before they start spending on any other issue.”
Ozo-Eson said it was worrisome that even the Federal Government was owing some categories of its workers for about three months.
He lamented that some state chapters of
the NLC did not give the national body a report on time that their
members were being owed.
He stated that payment of workers’ salaries should be made a priority.
The NLC secretary said, “For us, it is
criminal for any government not to pay workers’ salaries, accumulate
them over months while the governors and other political office holders
take their own salaries. Such is criminal. We are also aware that even
the Federal Government is owing some categories of civil servants their
salaries for over three months.
“This is extremely unacceptable. Whatever
is the reason for that! In the case of the Federal Government, they try
to explain it in terms of problems with migration to IPPIS system.We
think whatever is the logic, those salaries and arrears need to be
paid immediately.
“On state governments that are owing,
unfortunately some of the NLC chapters did not bring it to our notice
early enough for us to know that salaries are owed. If you owe a worker
salary for a month, you have no moral obligation to expect workers to
come and render any service.
“So to hear that there are states and
large number of them that are owing workers for two or three months is
completely unacceptable.”
