Members of the Bauchi State House of Assembly have on Tuesday expressed their disappointment over what they called ‘selective payment of workers’ salaries in the state.
The members of the Assembly during a plenary on Tuesday at the Assembly complex say they were disappointed on how the State government cherry picked some MDAs and workers in terms of payment of salaries.
A summary of proceedings of the Assembly made available to WikkiTimes by Abdul Burra, the spokesperson of the Speaker indicates that under matters of urgent public importance, Majority Leader of the House Hon. Tijjani Muhammad Aliyu (Azare/Madangala) “drew the attention of the House concerning the nonpayment of salary of some civil servants in the State.”
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Tijjani Aliyu who described Bauchi as a “salary state” says its economic activities “depends largely on salary and more than 70% revenue accrued to the State is used to pay salaries.”
He said the State’s payroll “has been undergoing a series of problems, verification upon verifications, claims and counter claims about the size of the payroll, ghost worker etc but all these have not yielded any positive result.”
“Any meaningful citizen of Bauchi State will support the government on sanitization of the payroll to fish out ghost workers and unnecessary expenditure.
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“The present administration has employed services of consultants to clean the payroll of the State and carry out a series of verification. It is welcome development but, in the process, many genuine workers are suffering.
“Some people spent almost a year without salary. Some three months while many are in their sixth month without salary”, Hon Tijjani lamented.
The lawmaker said the method of the payment of salary in the state was questionable, saying, some workers “will be denied salary for three months, later they will be given one-month salary only.”
Tijjani said the intermittent payment of salaries where “this month one ministry will get salary and another month they will not be paid” was highly unacceptable and was capable of derailing the administration.
“There is no way you should hold someone’s salary for months just because you are sanitizing payroll”, the Majority Leader lamented.
He added that the level of insecurity in the State can be attributed to the issues of nonpayment of salary to some workers.
Contributing on the floor of the Assembly, Hon. Jamilu Umaru Dahiru (Bauchi Central Constituency) said the issue of nonpayment of salary has cost him sleepless nights for more than a week.
“I made my own efforts and met the Head of Service and Accountant General. I have seen the Accountant General in his office and I can assure that there is progress.”
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WikkiTimes recalls that the Bauchi State Chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, had on August 10th given the Bauchi State Government seven days ultimatum to resolve what it calls “all the problems on pending workers issues and other entitlements in the state”, a call that has yet to offer any solution.
