- It’s immoral that many state governments did not pay workers’ salaries
It is time to pay serious attention to management of state finances as workers writhe in the agony of non-payment of salaries.
Once again workers in many states of the federation were thrown into agony and distress during the yuletide season. The season is noted as one of festivities when Nigerians put aside religious and ethnic division to relate, wine and dine together. In recognition of this, it is the tradition that workers in the public and private sectors are paid their December salary before Christmas every year.
However, the news this year is that many states were unable to meet their primary obligation to civil servants. Thus, the workers were hungry and angry during the period. We sympathise with them. Every individual has the right to set his priorities. It is one of the reasons men and women take up employment – to realise the goals they set for themselves. In developed countries, workers cherish their vacation and make monthly contributions to meet the aspirations. In Calabar, Cross River State, the whole of December is set aside for street carnivals.
One would have expected state chief executives to have taken this into consideration in planning finances towards the end of the year. It is immoral that governors who pleaded with and obtained bailout funds from the Federal Government could so soon have fallen back on their old ways. It is the height of wickedness that money obtained solely to pay workers’ salaries in order to put smiles on their faces could have been diverted so soon.
We call on the Federal Government to refrain from giving further handouts or any form of financial assistance to any state that defaulted on the terms for which the previous bailout was allocated. Public finance is a serious responsibility borne by chief executives. We call on the states that defaulted to come up with explanation on how they spent the bailout funds. Workers unions, the civil society and the media should take the states up. While quite a number of them defaulted in payments for three months, others for two, one was said to have fallen back on the notorious formula of paying half salary since July. Another was said to have paid only workers on levels 01 to 07. These are unacceptable practices.
Fortunately, this is not the season for partisan politics. It should therefore be easier for citizens to come together to make demands of their governments; any governor who is unable to pay salaries should be put on the spot now as a way of forcing his political party to drop him from the ballot in future elections. The court of public opinion should also take note of such persons.
It has become imperative to call attention to financial engineering in the states as very few are viable; it is now obvious that relying on the federation account is a ruinous way to manage the business of government at state and local government levels. Anyone offering himself for election should be made to explain how to boost internally generated revenue sources. Obviously the days of feeding-bottle economics is over. We hope the state governments have taken note of the Federal government’s resolve to liberalise the solid mineral sector this year. As the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals is releasing the blueprint for this, we expect the state governments to come up with their own blueprints on how to explore the opportunities. As all the states of the federation are blessed with solid minerals deposit, so is agricultural land a blessing to them all.
While commending President Muhammadu Buhari for the bold step he took in bailing out 27 states soon after he took over the reins of government, he should make the states realise that the Federal Government cannot continue to bear this burden.
