Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed has declared that he was not elected to pay salaries alone but to provide other dividends of democracy to the people of the state, The Punch Newspaper can report.
Mr Mohammed made the statement when he hosted the Christian Community in the state who paid him Christmas homage at the Government House on Saturday.
The Governor was reported lamenting the monthly salary cheque, which amounts to seven billion.
He said the payment of workers’ salaries was at the expense of capital projects and other programmes.
The governor also complained that some workers earn double monthly remunerations thereby inflating the amount spent on salaries.
“People are creating exclusion within the nominal roll in order to cause disaffection between us. Maybe out of the thousands of workers we are paying, some of them will just deliberately be excluded. But the government is providing 100 percent of the money required to pay salaries, and we are trying to do our best to make sure such exclusion where some people are just removed deliberately from the payroll will be a thing of the past.
“We have exited the consultant because some people said he is a problem so that at the end of the day, everybody will get his salary and pension. Pertaining to gratuity, we inherited over N28 billion arrears, we cannot do a miracle, we are paying it as we get some little money that is in excess of the salaries,” he stated.
The governor however said that his administration was working to ensure that any excluded worker is included on the payroll especially with the granting of local government autonomy.
WikkiTimes reports that governor Mohammed has repeatedly vowed to clean the state’s payroll infiltration, a promise he has yet to keep.
Many workers in the state continue to miss monthly salaries even as several verification committees inaugurated to rid the state of ghost workers submit their reports.
Governor Mohammed during his inauguration has said that he will totally rid the State of ghost workers and ensure every worker is duly paid their salaries.
Despite the verification exercises conducted, no one is held accountable for any wrongdoing.
