Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola has blamed the rapid shortfall in the federal allocation accruing to his state as being responsible for his inability to pay workers’ salaries.
Fielding questions from State House correspondents, shortly after he visited President Muhammadu Buhari at the Defence House, Abuja, Aregbesola said those who want to be objective would readily admit that the Osun State of November 2010 when he assumed office and Osun of today are not the same.
He also said without prompting he was paying 13th month bonus until 2013 when the down turn in the resources of the state set in.
Aregbesola said people must give credit to the changes that his administration had brought about in the state, saying the changes were not miracles but were occasioned by application of resources.
The governor further explained that with the unexpected and sharp decline in revenue, his administration had a dislocation.
Aregbesola said: No head of the family will be happy that he cannot feed members of the family.
“Extend that to state, it is heart-rending that I am in this quagmire.
“But no matter how sad (I don’t want to use the word ‘depressed), no matter how unhappy I am, the truth is that I will not fail to say that it is a situation absolutely beyond my control.
“I led an administration in receipt of regular allocation in which I do my budget. Unfortunately, this allocation started falling in rapid form that totally disorganised my budget and any other arrangement.
“For those who want to be objective, Osun of November 2010 when I assumed office and Osun of today are not the same. People must give credit to the changes that we have brought about in Osun. The changes were not miracles, they were changes occasioned by application of resources.
“But with the unexpected and sharp decline in our revenue, we had dislocation. The result of that dislocation is this quite sad experience.
“Were it to be Osun alone, probably I would not have an excuse. I pray it does not continue. I am not sure if there will be any state that will actually escape from the biting effect of the absolute sharp drop which I call economic disaster that we are grappling with.
“Since my inauguration on November 27, 2010, I had made it a duty to pay salary on or before 25th of every month up until January 2014 when that became practically impossible.
“I have been giving the same staff who today are, regrettably and painfully, not being paid annual bonus that we call 13th month salary. There was no demand for it. I just felt that workers must be encouraged, they must be inspired.
“I did that religiously and faithfully from 2010 to 2013. The development that led to this began precisely in July when we received the June allocation and it was short by 40 percent.
“Since then, what we have been receiving from the Federation Account is less than the wages, personnel cost. It is far and not mildly less.
“We struggled with it till October 2014. By that time, there was nothing we could do. Add to it is that we could not even go to bank to borrow to pay the wages commitment.
“It is a sad development. I am struggling to reduce the pain as much as possible and I am almost at the end of the efforts I am making to ensure that by the end of this month, I will have enough to at least meet to a large extent the salary needs of the workers.”
An I yaba I pajamas mechanic turned Governor has no business flying about in an agrarian state like Osun in military type helicopter while the state workers are owed 7 months salary.
The questions he should answer are as follows; –
1.Is he and his deputy Governor commissioners and retunee of special assistants also owed 7 months salaries?
2.Are the state assembly members also owed 7 months salaries.?
3.Is Aregbedola owed backlog of 7 months security votes?
4.Is it fair for a Governor to collect federal allocation monthly plus internally generated revenue and fail to pair workers of the state services but pay himself and his assistants?
THERE IS GOD OH, AREGBESOLA, THERE US ALLAH TOO.