N165bn salaries for civil servants: Save us the excuses – TUC

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria is bewildered at the numerous ludicrous excuses coming from virtually all segments of the three tiers of government and even some private individuals seeking to justify the failure of some state governments to pay the wage bill of workers and execute certain needful projects. 

TUC President, Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama

The latest revelation came from the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, four days after the former Special Assistant to former President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, asked governors to downsize because government is spending so much on salaries. The minister’s position is that the N165 billion monthly salaries to federal civil servants was over-bloated and could no longer be sustained by government.

We recall that it was widely reported that the immediate past administration discovered hundreds of thousands of ghost workers within the civil service. The present administration has also told us that they have discovered some and adopted series of measures to curb such cases. We are upset that the available information technology platforms and the Biometrics Verification Number (BVN) recently introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would have helped to iron out these things.

We thank the minister for faulting the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) introduced by the last administration. She said the system was sabotaged by elements benefitting from salary fraud.  We also welcome her claim that she has “created a unit assigned with the sole responsibility of checking the salaries and catching those behind the over-bloated salary.”

Our question now is, “Is the new unit a set of new employees or were they drawn from the same system?”

Are we faced with a situation where a witch cried yesterday and a child died today?  If so, do we need any soothsayer to inform us that it was the witch that killed the child?  For us there is no difference between the unit set up by the minister and the “elements” she alleged to be benefitting from the salary fraud.

We might not know the exact amount the country gets from the sale of crude and the internally generated revenue, but we know it is in trillions of naira.  We wish to reiterate that the cost of running government in the country is too expensive. It is mindboggling that a senator who barely initiates a bill throughout a 4-year tenure earns more than the United State President in a country that is yet to find its feet. It beats our imagination how a government contemplates and suggests sacking a worker that earns N18,000 national minimum wage while leaving politicians whose salaries and allowances are in millions. This does not make economic sense.

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria will fight to finish any attempt to sack Nigerians for errors that are not theirs. It is peak of injustice to sack a worker who earns a stipend just to be able to sustain payment of millions of naira to politicians. We cannot be made to bear the brunt of what we do not know about just to massage the ego and pockets of a privileged few.  Nobody or group should prompt a disruption of the prevailing peaceful industrial atmosphere in the country.

Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama, President, TUC

Comrade (Barr.) Simeso Amachree, Ag. Secretary General, TUC