N56,000 minimum wage: Our patience is running out – NLC President, Wabba

…10 states can’t pay workers’ salaries, pension despite bailout.

Comrade Aliyu Wabba is the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). Wabba, in this interview, speaks on the N56,000 minimum wage demand by the NLC, the funds released to stae governments by the Federal Government to enable them clear the backlog of salaries and pension and the matters arising therefrom.

As of today, how many states are still owing workers salaries and pension, and what is the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, doing about the situation?

In this challenging period of our economy, it is very unfortunate that workers and pensioners are the worst hit. However the situation couldn’t have been that bad if our political leaders especially state governors got their priorities right.

Our leaders here regard payment of salaries and pension as a waste but in other spheres payment of salaries is accorded top priority.

Let me state here categorically that the Federal Government has been making efforts to assist the states on the payment of outstanding salaries and pensions owed workers. In the first tranche of bail-out given to  states by the Federal Government, more than 26 states benefitted, but the irony of it all is that the more the Federal Government gives bail-out to the states, the less you understand what the states do with the money.

Many of the states have been diverting the bail-out meant to pay outstanding salaries and pension to other things, and this is why we are in the present situation. If the state governors have not been diverting the bail-out, the issue of workers and pensioners being owed would have become a thing of the past, and this is why NLC has now insisted that before the Federal Government gives further bail-out to the states, the state governors must be made to account for how the previous bail-out they collected was utilized. There is a need to insist on transparency and accountability on this issue, otherwise most of the state governors would not use the bail-out for the purpose for which it was meant.

Recently, the report and the news was all over the place about how a state governor diverted 3 million dollars from a previous bail-out collected from the Federal Government to build a five-star hotel in Lagos. This is very unfortunate.

There are many states that are still owing workers and pensioners but Kogi State is about the worst. The state government is owing workers between eight and 15 months salary arrears. The state government has been hiding under a verification exercise to delete some workers names from the state payroll but these workers are not ghost workers. The so-called verification exercise was a sham, it was a ploy to reduce the state workforce but NLC is not taking it lightly with the state government. What is happening today in Kogi is a big threat to the survival of workers and pensioners.

I think it is better for our political elites to change their present way of treating Nigerian workers with levity, otherwise the consequences that will follow nobody can predict. Nigerian workers are being pushed to the wall, and as the saying goes, there is a limit to human endurance.

Kogi is a peculiar state. I don’t know why workers and pensioners there are being treated like that. With the way things are going in that state, with the series of  social vices like kidnapping,  armed robbery among others being recorded almost on daily basis in the state, Kogi is gradually degenerating into what some people describe as a failed state.

In the North Central, Benue is another bad case among states owing salaries and pension. Benue  is  documented by the ICPC as being among the states that diverted the bail-out meant to pay workers salaries. For now, about 10 states are not paying workers and pensioners as and when due.

Bayelsa is also on the list of debtor-states. The state is owing pensioners, teachers and civil servants. In the case of Osun, the state has been paying workers on the basis of percentage and that has also brought pains on workers, the same thing Oyo State is doing. Ondo State also has accumulated salaries that have not been paid.

But we also have examples of some states that are doing extremely very well and are workers-friendly. For example, Jigawa is not owing workers; in fact, the state has not collected any bail-out from the Federal Government. The state pays salary and pension as and when due, and if you retire today, you get your gratuity without delay. So you can see that it is a matter of state governors giving priority to what they are doing. It is sad and very unfortunate that most of these state governors have little or no regard for workers’ interests – most of them regard payment of salaries and pension as a waste, and yet they live opulent lifestyle while feeding fat on the sweat of  workers.

We must commend those states that pay workers as and when due while we will not relent in defending the rights and interests of Nigerian workers. You wonder what is happening when states that are receiving less monthly allocation are meeting up with their obligations to workers like in the case of Jigawa and at the same time states that are receiving high allocations like an oil producing state like Bayelsa is owing workers and can’t meet up its obligations to civil servants – this is why I said earlier that it is a matter of state governors getting their priorities right.

In order to save cost, and made more funds available to enable state governments meet up with some obligations like payment of workers salaries and pension, some people have canvassed the scrapping of security vote which runs into billions of naira and collected monthly by state governors. What do you think?

Security vote should be abolished. What do these governors do with billions of naira they collect monthly as security vote? Moreso the money is not even accounted for, security vote negate principles of transparency. Nothing is transparent about security vote and this promotes corruption, therefore it should be abolished.

If a state is not at war, why should a governor collect N1 billion monthly as a security vote which is not even accounted for? This is nothing but corruption – security vote is another avenue for looting.

Talking about the casualty arising from non-payment of salaries and pension, can you give us the number of workers and pensioners that have died as a result of being owed by state governments?

Source – Vanguard