By Isiyaka Wunti
I read with great dismay a Press Release issued by the opposition All Progressive Congress APC in Bauchi State through it Publicity Secretary Adamu Jallah berating the state government over the purported claim of non-payment of worker’s salaries
It is beyond reasonable doubt that such a barking was not only politically motivated but a deliberate attempt by the perishing APC to exonerate itself from the obvious truth that the party was the originator of the embattled predicament.
It could be recalled that the state civil servants have been enjoying uninterrupted payment of workers salaries, pensions, and gratuities until during the previous APC led administration which compromises various federal government interventions such as bailout and paris club funds aimed at upsetting the backlog of salary arrears, gratuities and pensions in some affected state across the federation, Bauchi State inclusive.
This was the origin of the longtime predicament as the funds meant for addressing the problem were allegedly diverted to service either self interests or deployed to unintended areas. Had the problem solved, issues related to salaries would have been a thing of past.
It is a well established principle, that any new government especially the one that unseated the incumbent must embark on a thorough redress, verifications and inventory taking with a view to identifying wrong doing and hidden plans that may bring setback to it policies and programmes . In Bauchi State, dopting this strategy is inevitable in view of the fact that the state civil service payroll and nominalroll are full of ghost workers and influx of sharp practices allegedly to have been carried by some unscrupulous officials of the previous administration
Unarguably, there are few innocent civil servants that are victimized by the ongoing verification exercise but every right thinking member of the society must testify that such an exercise normally affected some innocent Workers and that was why Governor Bala Muhammad had officially apologized to those cartigory of people.
” On behalf of the state government, I sincerely apologize to the innocent civil servants affected by the verification exercise. We are doing it with the fear of God and with the sole intention of freeing resources to enable government employ our young graduates”
Shortly after Governor Bala Muhammad made the apology while receiving the report of the Workers BVN verification committee headed by senator Adamu Gumba where about five hundred ghost workers apprehended, he directed for the immediate payment backlog of salary arrears of those exonerated by the committee and payment are being made in that regard.
In the APC’s Press Statement made available to journalists in Bauchi, the Publicity Secretary also said that ” there is no justification for the government to withhold salaries of some staff for three months and more when the state receives its monthly allocations from the federal government”
This is also a mischievous claim as the state government has began payment of this month (August) since from twenty sixth of the month.
The challenges of the delay in receiving credit alert by some workers may not be unconnected to the introduction of a new salary consultants that will sanitize the payroll and nominalroll which has to adopt a gradual and tactical processes in the implementation of it peculiar plans to prevent sabotage from perpetrators.
Senator Bala Muhammad must not be unmindful of the contributions made by civil servants to the emergence of his government and must therefore not take any deliberate action that would subject them into untold hardship. That is why despite the multi-billion naira peoples oriented projects being executed across the state, payment of salaries and pensions remain the priority of his administration.
