Local Government Councils in Kwara state are to carry out personnel and overheads audit as part of strategies to check the delay in the payment of workers’ salaries.
This was the resolution in a communiqué issued after the meeting attended by the state governor, Dr Abdulfatah Ahmed, local government chairmen and labour leaders, on the salaries arrears to local government staff and teachers.
The Chairman of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) in the state, Barrister Abdulateef Okandeji, who read the communiqué, said the meeting also resolved that ALGON and other stakeholders will work out modalities on “how future allocations would be disbursed while prioritising payment of salaries of staff from hence forth”.
Barr. Okandeji, who is also the chairman of Ilorin East local government, said the meeting also reviewed state and local government finances as a result of persistent shortfall in resources and allocation.
The chairman added that government on its part said it is “neither desirous of sacking workers nor reducing the minimum wage. Government, together with Labour Unions, is to explore the best ways to access fund to pay the backlog of salaries arrears – October, November and December – owed the staff of the Local Government, as well as Primary/Basic school teachers in the State”.
The ALGON chairman further noted that the meeting appreciated that the current allocation can barely take care of few of the financial commitment of the local government which caused backlog of salaries owed the local government staff, local government pensions, primary and junior secondary school teachers.
The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, Joint Negotiation Council, Nigeria Union of Teachers and Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees. -Daily Times.
