I agree, Governor Yahaya Bello’s administration owe salaries. The people live on salaries, after all, it is a mono-economy. Government job is more lucrative than entrepreneurial ventures consolidating the counter of private sector to aid the public sector. No, it has to be government job. They argue that there’s job security. The job security argument is the neo-lazy way of people wanting not to be accountable to responsibility of jobs.
You know Government jobs are secure because all forms of duty-abuse go scot free. The security officials do not have to be at their duty posts. The sole administrator can run his ministry like Idi Amin. He cannot be questioned, neither can he be sacked.
Obviously, this kind of security is also good for those who can be living in sokoto while employed in Kogi state.
Another type of security is when a Local Govt. worker is also a State Government worker, he draws salaries from both organs of free money.
Have you also forgotten that the pregancy benefit for wives of some civil servants are in the public service? They don’t have to be at work. They can be pregnant at home, dishing out babies year in and out while their salaries run. Who can challenged them when their husbands, highly connected ogas at the top have them on their security list?
What about time they go to work? Don’t worry, a generous person would appear 12pm and depart 2pm. He has tried. Even oga is not generous at showing up.
Few days ago, the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC categorised the wokers in Kogi state into three departments. There was an astronomical of 16 months. In high sounding innuendos, the NLC who have become masters of strong words in “formal communication” charged at the Govenror. Kogi must always be the most guilty. Those politicians in court must always use their NLC connection to make it so. But in of the case of kogi state with a 4.3 official population, a pendulum allocation between 1.8- 2.5Bn with a civil service wage bill of 2.6Bn, with several accumulated loans from 1999-2016 being deducted at source as against a Bayelsa State with less population and 13th derivation, grossing almost 10bn monthly as an oil producing state, owing about 5 months. You would ask, do they have any reason (s) to owe? But like Kogi State and Bayelsa state, we find a lazy civil service without integrity to duty. We also have an over relying population that sees civil service as their dream job. After all, their excesses have no punishment there. Surprisingly, we still have a growing civil service list with misplacement of needs as people were been rewarded civil service employment letters for political loyalty.
How can you battle with an already recruited civil servant, even when he has no clear duty-post, job description and value addition composite, but he has a valid employment letter? By implication, if you don’t remove him, you cannot employ the Doctor needed for the General Hospital, because if you keep both, your wage bill grows even when your allocation cannot grow.
What about those making argument from Internally Generated Revenue, (IGR)? In a mono-economy, powered by the civil service, it means IGR does not grow without payment of salaries because it is the same salaries that are taxed on a macro scale. Except when the indegenes begin the argument for creating and running SMEs, MSMEs, stimulating the value chain of Agriculture, believing more in the private sector, how do we have a diversified IGR source of income? It is common sense. It means that, if half salaries were paid last month, half IGR last month.
How can a state that gets allocation not exceeding 2.5BN monthly, deductions of agglutination of loans, reducing the figure to about 1.8BN, romping about 1BN to have a 2.8BN service a civil service wage bill of 2.6BN and still be able to service contractors, run key maintenance of government infrastructural, run state/Federal government partnership programs and still make money available for for entrepreneurs? The overbloated and misplaced-duty-employment of the civil service in Kogi State is shortchanging other sectors. We cannot also have a civil service that runs on a bilateral government of inefficiency and lackadaisical attitude to add value to the general economy of the state without being questioned.
The reason why some Health Workers recently given employment letter but asked to wait is because the State Government has a bill they can’t service already, adding you is to add additional mouths of those who would accuse them of not paying salaries. We have also all of a sudden forgotten that we were into recession which Buhari was blamed for, but now all our problems must be Yahaya Bello the wicked White Lion.
The reason why many people run to social media to masturbate about how my state is this and that is because they don’t do simple analysis for themselves. They also enjoy negative news a lot. We have to rejoice.
When the current administration placed an advertisement recently of how the bailouts fund received were spent, how many people forensically challenged it? How many well researched analysis did we see? Because Government has to be rabble rousing, because we need to create propaganda to give birth to hate-filled mental projectual trajection towards the administration, we need to keep telling people what we “assume”. What we “think”, not what “we know”. Was it not in 2015 some people complained that Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was demonised with propaganda by Buhari to be removed? In 2017, same people who accused APC of propaganda are sponsoring, sympathising and sycophanting information they’ve not researched.
We are very dishonest and hypocritical people in this society. While your brothers, uncles, fathers and connected politicians reward your destiny with Civil Service jobs even when you have no clear addition in an already overbloated sector, remember that we run a capitalist economy. Remember that Government alone cannot do it. Remember that salaries can’t make anybody rich. Remember that non-payment of salaries would not end with Yahaya Bello, as many people have jobs without functions. As many of you who are making noise online too would accept a ghost civil service job.
Each time Government workers embark on strikes to demand for salaries, they shortchange the economy of the state and indigenes who have transactions with the ministries. They stay at home, divert their break into other things. After resumption, they are paid for ALL the months they were absent from work. Nobody compensates the economy, nobody compensates you. It is animal farm. It is a win-win for the civil servants, they’re also amongst those posting online.
I don’t have a problem with civil servants going on strike to demand the salaries, at least it is their paper right, even though most of them don’t add concrete value or take their duties in utmost regard as they take their salaries.
I only have a problem with them being paid for the number of months they stay at home.
– Jacob Abraham Damilare
