MOTION OF APPEAL URGING THE STATE GOVERNMENT TO PAY COMPASSIONATELY THE WORKERS’ SALARIES WHILE THE STAFF VERIFICATION EXERCISE IS BEING CONDUCTED SIMULTANEOUSLY
The Rt. Hon. Speaker, my distinguished and Hon. Colleagues; I quote the words of Sunday Adelaja, in his book Money Won’t Make You Rich, “a salary does not make a person rich, but only gives him opportunity to take care of his needs”. Amongst the human needs are food, shelter, health and as the saying goes, “health is wealth”. I posit reasonably, therefore, that if our salaries did not make us rich but guarantee good health, then absence of it conveyed the certainty of our failure to meet our basic needs.
Whereas, in the last few months, owing to dwindling prices of the crude oil and its negative impact on the State’s revenue from the Federation Accounts, the State could not pay its workforce their salaries, which are today in arrears of four months. Concerned by the need to plug loopholes through which public funds are being siphoned in the guise of salary payment, the State Government ably led by His Excellency, Alhaji Yahaya Bello embarked on staff verification exercise.
Whereas, the State Government, desiring to create to an accurate data base of staff in the State, gave its assurances that the staff verification exercise will not witch hunt, retrench or inflict untold hardship on its staffers. These assurances received public support and hope that the details of the report of this exercise will be implemented.
Whereas, the rise in cost of living as a result of further depreciation of Naira and the fall in the standard of living consequent upon the nonpayment of salaries to the State civil servants, life of an average civil servant today in Kogi State is difficult and uneasy; requiring great strength, mental effort and endurance to carry on hence the general cries seeking the State Government to allow the ongoing verification exercise to proceed at the same time with the payment of staff salaries and needlessly emphasizing recent deaths occasioned by the inability of ailing staffers to procure drugs and treatments.
Therefore, be it resolved by this Honourable House as follows:
That a compassionate appeal be made urging the State Government to pay at least a month of workers’ salaries while the staff verification exercise is being conducted simultaneously, and
That the payment of these salaries be made manually having obtained commitment from the Account Clerks that the salaries would only be paid to the bona fide staffers of any of the MDAs in the State.
To conclude this Motion, I dare bring to the fore a quote from the Indonesian Sci-Fi writer, Toba Beta in his “My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut”:
“If to love each other is the job, then the happy life is the salary.”
The Rt. Hon. Speaker, I wish, accordingly, to implore my distinguished Hon. Colleagues, as a matter of necessity, to show love to our Constituents and resolve positively in giving them a happy life.
I so moved.
Dated today the 15th day of March, 2016.
Hon. Moses Ododo,
Dekina Biraidu Constituency.
Minority Whip.
