Why we disengage 4,000 public servants in Kaduna ─Governor

*The Kaduna State Government has justified its sack of local council workers for paucity of funds, insisting that the government was not elected just to pay salaries of public servants alone, but to also develop the state by building schools, hospitals, upgrading infrastructure, others

Alexander Davis | ConsumerConnect

In view of the measures the government said it took and resources committed to managing the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has explained why his administration is sacking public servants in the state is due to dwindling financial resources and unsustainable higher wage bills.

Recall that the Kaduna State Government April 6 had disengaged 4,000 local government workers.

Subsequently, the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) kicked against the decision, calling on the state government to reverse the decision and seek alternative means of running its affairs without inflicting additional pains on the public, according to report.

However, Muyiwa Adekeye, Spokesman of Governor El-Rufai in a statement, insisted that the government was not elected just to pay salaries of public servants alone, but to also develop the state by building schools, hospitals, upgrading infrastructure and making the state more secure and attractive to the private sector for jobs and investments.

The governor noted what the state government has been receiving from the Federal Allocation Committee since the middle of 2020, like most other sub-nationals, can barely pay salaries and overheads.

In the last six months, personnel costs have accounted for between 84.97% and 96.63% of FAAC transfers received by the Kaduna State Government, said El-Rufai.

The statement further said: “In November 2020, KDSG had only N162.9m left after paying salaries. That month, Kaduna State got N4.83bn from FAAC and paid N4.66bn as wages. In March 2021, Kaduna State had only N321m left after settling personnel costs.”

“That month, the state got N4.819bn from FAAC and paid out N4.498bn, representing 93% of the money received.”

The government stated: “This does not include standing orders for overheads, funding security operations, running costs of schools and hospitals, and other overhead costs that the state has to bear for the machinery of government to run, for which the state government taps into IGR earnings.”

While the Kaduna State Government believes that the overall wages of the public sector are still relatively low, it stated that the current levels are obviously limited by the resources available to the government.

According to the government, the public service in Kaduna State with less than 100,000 employees (and their families) cannot be consuming more than 90% of government resources, with little left to positively impact the lives of the more than nine million that are not political appointees or civil servants.

It is gross injustice for such a micro-minority to consume the majority of the resources of the state, it said.