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Kogi has 17,748 civil servants currently on Government payroll according to the Commissioner for Finance, Hon. Asiwaju Idris Asiru.
This laces a Kogi estimated population of 4.3m (BudgetIT, 2017), a fraction in percentage of the total population if you subtract the workforce. This civil servants gulp between 2.6-3.1BN monthly on a revenue that averages 3.2BN, at highs touching 4.2 BN. This allocation would witness loan deductions of about 800m monthly.
BudgetIT also reveals a recurrent expenditure of about 6.2BN monthly to service Health care, Education, Security, Youths and Sports, etc. By implication, what comes to Kogi monthly cannot even service salaries alone after loan and other security obligations. Then you look at critical infrastructure, water and human capacity building.
There’s a deficit of 2-3BN monthly accruing if you look into our monthly recurrent expenditure of about 6.2BN. So for Kogi to meet its salary obligations, critical infrastructure, security and other social engineering compactness, she requires between 8-10BN monthly allocation and IGR.
It is practically impossible for Bello to pay salaries monthly and still fulfill commitments to road infrastructure, water projects, etc. The recurrent expenditure is also the reason why Wada’s Government was owing into the expiration of his tenure even though he had more allocation.
If you talk about bailouts, it only clears “arrears”, it doesn’t balance the economy because it is on constant deficit.
By implication, the state would require the private sector activity to help create a dual economy.
If people go into different businesses, they would be less dependence of civil service salaries. They would be more people jacking up the number from 17k as part of those who contribute to the Economy. Little wonder, even in the era when salaries were paid, Kogi grew on the poverty index until 2016, when the Oxford MPI showed a 3% decline due to about 16k farmers empowered by government, which aided food production and sales, bringing more forex to the state.
Sadly, the only language Kogites understand is “salaries”. Something that creates a lazy economy that keeps more people in perpetual poverty because population would continue to record annual growth, however, allocation and economic participation remains redundant. When you also look at economics of scale, what is the contribution by chain of civil service spending? Most of the funds are taken via capital flight as those who own and control major businesses in the state are not directly indigenous. They take the money from Kogites through the consumer goods economy that does not produce and take to other states to invest in critical infrastructure like building houses, etc.
I foresee a future laden with poverty because salaries would only require government to keep borrowing to pay backlogs or when they can afford it, they would have nothing left to embark on legacy projects.
These are some of the things that must happen for Kogi to move forward:
1. More people who do not depend on civil service and salaries are the only people to push the economy forward either by repatriation of funds from other states, a similar practice of those who own businesses in Kogi state or, they indigenous citizens must control the little businesses in town so they can be retention of funds, to avoid capital flight. They should be legislation to state citizenship participation on the board of some businesses in the state. When foreigners come to do business in Nigeria, there is always a policy on how many Nigerian citizens must be on their recruitment portfolio. This should be duplicated in Kogi because it is an Economy trying to grow.
2. Budget IT stated Kogi’s major strengths as Agriculture which involves deliberate investment in Farming which includes Aquaticulture (Fish Farming), Rice production, Cassava, Cashew, Maize, and other cash crops. If 10% of the population which is about 400,30 thousand persons can go into this, it would balance the economy by quarter contribution ratio total population.
3. The civil service should be privatized to produce 50% revenue for their own salaries while government contributes the other 50%. For Example, the Ministry of Agriculture can become a bureau on her own like the Kogi Revenue services. Let them own farms, broker deals and bring in only experts that would run it like a business.
4. Education can be directly funded by the Government since it marries future economic planning with development of Human Resources, however, students in the various institutions like faculty of Agric should be allowed to own school farms, generate certain revenue target from sales as a way of getting a final award of their degrees.
Regardless of how consistent salaries are, with the fiscal framework of a capitalist economy, where Kogi is missing in action at the core private sector which is the main driver of all capitalist economies, the population is due to harvest more people into poverty because a larger and redundant mouth would be dependent on salary from less than 3% of the total population.
Kogi cannot move forward if we think with our ovaries and testosterone.
– Promise Emmanuel (Kogi Rebel)
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