The Oyo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday, raised the alarm over the claims by the state governor, Mr. Seyi Makinde, who said that the state is paying the sum of eleven billion Naira (N11b) as salaries of one hundred and fifteen thousand workers in the state.
DAILY POST recalls that Makinde had last week told participants at the Nigerian-American Business Forum in Tampa, Florida, United States that the state has 115,000 civil servants and a wage bill of N11 billion per month, which is just 1.4 per cent of the total population.
He said, “Presently, Oyo State has 115,000 civil servants and a wage bill of N11 Billion per month, which is just 1.4 per cent of the total population. We can’t employ all the strong and energetic people in the state. Our job is to ensure we create opportunities that will be appealing to the private sector so they can come in and provide employment opportunities for 10 per cent of the population who are presently unemployed and create more opportunities to attract further investment.”
But, APC while reacting, described the claims by Makinde as a “futile attempt to cover up the brazen looting of the public treasury by the present administration of the Peoples Democratic Party”.
APC in a statement signed by its Assistant Publicity Secretary, Prince Ayobami Adejumo, regretted what it called apparent lack of direction and promise on the part of the current PDP government of Gov. Seyi Makinde “which has done more harm than good to the people of the state in the last nine months.
Adejumo in the statement made available to DAILY POST in Ibadan, the state capital, said, “We had waited patiently for Gov. Makinde to make a u-turn and blame his handlers for improper briefing on this particular matter like he has always been doing since his assumption of office last year May. But it is apparent that the governor was on a mission to sell a dummy with a view to doing a cover up on the palpable diversion of monies from the state government coffers into some private accounts.
“He went as far as the United States to make a disclosure of 115, 000 workforce and N11b wage bill which he claimed to have been paying since June 2019 even when he had never mentioned this to anyone at home despite being wanting to be in the media every time by the way of propaganda sponsorship and benefiting from calculated media hype.
“To set the record straight, the statistics obtainable as at May 2019 is as follows; Core Civil Servants -10,789, TESCOM staff (teaching/non teaching) -17,615, Local Government Staff -12, 264, SUBEB Staff -23, 352, Parastatals -2,266, NYSC (Corps members serving in the state) -3,403. State government pensioners -16,539 and a total Wage Bill of N5.2b including payments to all political office holders and Subventions to state owned tertiary institutions. It is worthy of note that monthly payments to local government council staff (12, 264), public primary school employees (23, 352) and local government pensioners (8,805) are being made directly from federal allocations to the 33 LGAs.
“In view of the foregoing, the questions that readily come to mind are; how did Gov. Makinde come about his figures? Has there been any recruitment of new staff to justify the 20, 000 additional staff population figure? When did salary payments to local government staff and retirees become the responsibility of a state government? Why has the Oyo state government not released the breakdown of the figures quoted to put paid to the concerns raised globally about the governor’s claims? When did the state government commence the payment of its compressed new minimum wage to workers in the state and is this responsible for the over N5.8b increase in wage bill?
“It is equally worrisome that labour unions in the state have kept mute over this development when, in fact, they are in the best position to do the needful and save the state resources from being plundered. But, we are not unmindful of the fact that a section of the leadership of the labour unions are being constrained by the role they played in helping the current PDP administration to get to power as it would be too early for them to express regrets in the open.”
APC has also warned Makinde to thread with caution as his administration “continually takes actions inimical to the smooth running of the third tier of government in Oyo State in view of the needless engagement of elected council officials in a war of attrition to the disadvantage of the masses and ideal practice of constitutional democracy.
“The whole world has been made to see that Gov. Makinde is not here to add any value to the generation administration of the Pacesetter State in his four years. And rather than allow elected council chairmen and councillors with good governance orientation to function as expected, he is bent on causing unrest in the land.
“The governor has again shown his disregard for the Judiciary and the nation’s Constitution by appointing transition committees members into all the LGAs and LCDAs when different courts have restrained him from doing so. This is regrettable.”
DAILY POST recalls that Gubernatorial candidate of Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the 2019 general elections in the state, Engineer Oyedele Hakeem Alao, had earlier tackled Makinde, over his claim that the state is currently paying N11 billion as salaries to one hundred and fifteen thousand workers in the state’s payroll.
Alao, who said that people of the state deserved explanation from the governor, added that the assertion made by Makinde that the state has 115,000 people as workers came as a surprise to him.
The AD candidate while reacting, maintained that the governor is hereby, sued to the public court to explain where and how he got those staggering figures as against the information at the doorstep of the generality of the people of Oyo State regarding the subject.
