Workers in Benue, Kogi, Abia, Oyo, Ondo and Ekiti State have not received salaries in 2017, a survey conducted by BudgIT has shown.
Lagos, Kano, Sokoto and others are the only state not owing
workers in the survey.
It revealed that the survey covered primary school teachers,
secondary school teachers, local government workers, state independent workers,
pensioners and state secretariat workers.
“In particular, we discovered that many states have
defaulted in the payments of pensions and gratuities,” the statement read.
“From the survey carried out, we discovered that apart from
the fact that 16 states which are yet to pay the pensions of former civil
servants in their service, 8 of these states have not paid their pensioners at
least 12 months’ pensions, while states like Imo, Taraba and Niger owe pensions
of about 2 to 3 years.
“Notably, these pensioners expressed how unhappy they are,
their dissatisfaction with the government and how hard it has been for them to
survive.
“In addition to outstanding pensions, we note from our survey
that across all categories, states like Kogi, Abia, Benue, Oyo, Ekiti and Ondo
have not paid their workers’ salaries for this year 2017; owing at least 4
months’ salary. However, the likes of Lagos and Rivers have been consistently
impressive with their up to date and full payment of civil servants’
remuneration.”
“There have been several newspaper publications on states’
civil servants being owed salaries and we are also aware that due to the recent
economic downturn FAAC allocations to states and their internally generated
revenue have reduced drastically making them unable to pay their staff salaries
and run their states effectively.”
BudgIT asked the federal government to “tighten its
accountability structures” in response to the promise of governors to pay
salaries after another tranche of Paris Club refund is released.
“State governors have recently canvassed that the federal
government should provide another tranche of Paris Club refund to offset
salaries and other liabilities,” the statement read.
“We hereby ask the federal government should tighten its
accountability structures for the series of extra-statutory funds that are
provided to state government, which currently has reached N1.75tn.
“State governments need to more in terms of transparency and
the use of funds… it is pertinent to state here that only Bauchi, Kogi, Kano,
Kaduna, Edo, Gombe and Yobe have provided their full 2017 budgets to the
public.”
By Ameh Comrade Godwin
