Despite FG’s Bailout, States Still Owe Salaries As Adesina Says Buhari Won’t Rush To Sign Budget

President Muhammadu Buhari speaking during the recently concluded NEC Economic Retreat at which the 36 states of the federation were represented. 

Despite a massive bailout by the Federal Government last year, dozens of states still cannot pay their workers for many months.

Daily Trust report continues:

Investigations in the past week have shown that majority of Nigeria’s 36 states owe workers between one to nine months in unpaid salaries.

 The states were in dire straits by the middle of last year with most of them being unable to pay workers and carry out basic functions of government.

As a result a total of ₦662 billion bailout funds were renegotiated for 27 states in July last year, with 19 states receiving ₦222 billion from the CBN in  September, 2015.

The CBN approved ₦338 billion loans to 27 states to pay outstanding salaries at nine percent interest rate over a 20-year-period.

But despite this, most of these states are still unable to pay workers salaries. The most affected workers are primary and secondary school teachers, health workers, and traditional rulers among others.

Some of the states owing salaries include Kaduna, Kwara, Plateau, Benue, Borno, Yobe, Imo, Taraba, Kogi, Bauchi, Delta, Oyo, Nasarawa and Ogun.

Those  who are managing to pay have slashed the salaries between 30 to 50 percent, while others have stopped paying leave grants, pensions and other workers entitlements.
Over 2,000 teachers in Kaduna are yet to get their salaries for over six months now, Daily Trust reports.

Some teachers in the state have been finding it difficult to get their monthly pay since the verification exercise conducted for civil servants last year by the present administration.
The commissioner of education in the state, Dr. Shehu Usman Adamu in a recent interview said that there were over 32,000 teachers in the primary schools out of which only 2,717 had not been paid because they had same PSN number or related issues.

Correspondents also learnt that local government workers did not get their salaries for January but later got two months’ salary at the end of February while some depending on the LG have also been paid for March but some are yet to receive their salaries for three months.

Similarly, districts heads and village heads in some local government areas of the states have not received salaries for months ranging from five to nine.

“Zangon Kataf LG paid the district heads’ salaries for some months in arrears while payment for the remaining months is still pending. Those of Kaura LG have not been paid for over 10 months now,” a source said.

In Kwara state both state and local government workers are still being owed many months salaries.

The most affected people are teachers, council staff and workers of the state owned tertiary institutions who at are being owed about seven month salaries.

The Nigerian Labour Congress chairman in the state, Comrade Yekeen Agunbiade said the core civil servants in the state had been paid up to date except those who had issues with the biometric verification and BVN while those in the service of SUBEB, local government and parastatals were being owed.

“State government still owes staff of state tertiary institutions about seven month salary, two months is 2016 and backlog of about five months from last year.

“Junior Secondary School teachers under SUBEB are being owed six months salaries and the primary school teachers as well.

Also,  establishments such as the state owned media house are owed one  month while  the Art Council workers are owed two months salaries,” Agunbiade said.

Staff of the water corporation are owed over five months and they are on strike now.

The Senior Special Assistant to Governor Abdulfattah Ahmed, Dr. Muideen Akorede said the teachers who were still being owed were local government teachers.

In Kogi state, Daily Trust reports that state workers are still being owed four months’ salaries.
State Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Onuh Edoka, said government was yet to pay salaries for the month of December 2015 as well as January, February and March 2016.

Governor Yahaya Bello who assumed office on January 27, 2016 has so far cleared two months out of the arrears of salaries being owed state workers.

Daily Trust reports that the worst hit in terms of payment of salaries are teachers and local government workers as their arrears date back to September 2013.

In Yobe, some council staff, primary school teachers and the primary health-care staff are owed salaries for months.

The commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, Alhaji Dawa Maigari told our correspondent that the situation arose due to short fall from the federal account.
Emir of Fika and chairman of Yobe Council of Chiefs, Dr. Muhammadu Ibn Abali Muhammadu Idrissa, said recently that some traditional rulers, mostly village heads had not received salaries for close to two years.

The Bauchi state government owes workers four months salaries, an adviser to the state governor, Comrade Sabo Mohammed told Daily Trust.

He said since November 2015, the state government had been putting an average of ₦400 million to augment the payment of local government salaries as their grant kept fluctuating and could not meet the amount needed to pay their salaries.

However, he said the situation in the state was taking its toll on the life of an average civil servant in the state.

Local government workers in Delta state are owed eight months salaries, investigations reveal.

It was learnt that the state government is contemplating a 50 percent slash of the remunerations of its political appointees.

The traditional councils last month received less than 50 percent of their monthly emolument.
In Katsina state, both state and local government workers are not owing any outstanding salaries as they have been paid up to last month.

When contacted the secretary to the state government Mustapha Inuwa said the government was facing serious challenges with regards to sustaining the prompt payment of salaries.

He said about 26 of the local governments could not pay their salaries from what they received  from the federation account as state government monthly tops up between ₦540 - ₦600 million to ensure salaries are paid.

In Taraba state, primary schools teachers and local government workers were not paid their salaries for two months while civil servants complained of illegal deduction of their salaries.

Daily Trust finding revealed that workers in the 16 local government councils were not paid salary for the Months of January and March.

Our investigation further revealed that primary schools teachers were also not paid salary for two months while local government pensioners were not paid pension for several months.

In Benue state, the state and local government workers are yet to receive any salary since the beginning of this year.

In Oyo State, a consultative committee comprising labour and government representatives has been set up to recommend the best way forward in the face of the state’s dwindling revenue with a view to fashioning out modalities of defraying a five-month salary arrears.

However, the labour unions have issued a seven-day ultimatum to the government to pay the   five-month salary arrears.

The Chairman of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Nasarawa State Francis Tete said primary school teachers in the state are now forced to receive less than 30 to 20 percent of their salaries from the local government authorities since November last year.
“As am talking to you there is no fixed salaries for primary school teachers. Teachers are receiving less than 20 percent of their salaries and NUT had taken several steps to end this ungodly act but to no avail,” he said.

Workers in Imo state are yet to receive the February and March salaries. Although, they were paid January Salary, it was slashed by 30 percent.

The state government and the Labour unions had during the December protest agreed for 70 percent and 30 percent payment of salaries but the delay in the payment of the salaries has been a source of worry to workers.

In Kano, Daily Trust gathered that the state had a total workforce of about 160, 000 workers comprising 32, 000 for the local government, 63, 000 for the state and 65, 000 for the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).

According to the state’s Head of Service, Malam Muhammad Auwal Na’iya, the state is spending ₦8.3bn on salaries monthly.

He said the government has sustained regular payment of salaries to its workers, noting that government does not owe workers salaries.

However, Daily Trust findings indicated that there were 1,800 teachers employed by the immediate past administration in January last year whose eight months’ salaries have not been paid to them.

2016 Budget - contentious so far

Meanwhile President Muhammadu Buhari will not rush to sign the 2016 budget transmitted to him last week by the National Assembly, his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, said at the weekend.

Adesina said on his Facebook wall that Buhari would sign a budget that would “do good to the maximum number of Nigerians”.

“He will not rush to sign a document that may become un-implementable,” he said in a television interview excerpt he posted on his wall.

According to him, the president will sign a document that the executive agrees with and will not just sign for the sake of signing.

“And he has said himself that he would scrutinize the budget, look at the provisions ministry by ministry.  The ministers will have to agree that what has been approved for them will do the work that they need to do…Unless that is achieved, I can’t be presumptuous to tell you that the president will sign immediately. Don’t forget that the constitution gives the president an allowance of 30 days after the budget is sent back to him,” he said.