While Bauchi State government stopped deductions from workers’ salaries, local government workers in Niger State were recently not paid their salaries in full. Staff of the 25 LGs in the state have cried out over the deduction of 20 per cent from their March 2020 salaries.
The workers said the action amounted to insensitivity on the part of their LG chairmen. Depending on grade level, some LG workers in Niger had as much as N20,000 or more deducted from their salaries. Some of the affected workers said the deduction was made to cushion the effect of the lockdown over the novel COVID-19 on rural communities and the provision of protective materials to contain its spread. The aggrieved workers also said the deduction was despite the state government’s N10 million gesture to each LG chairman in the effort to contain the spread of the new virus.
It was reported that LG chairmen agreed at a meeting among the 25 LG chairmen, officials of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and Medical and Allied Workers Union that workers should be paid 80 per cent of their salaries for March 2020.
However, the Medical and Health Workers Union, NULGE, NUT and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), after a joint meeting rejected the decision of the Ministry for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs to deduct any percentage from their March 2020 salaries.
Chairman of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) in Niger State, Malam Ibrahim Abubakar Bosso, who is also chairman of Chanchaga LGA, said the decision to deduct a certain percentage from the salaries of their workers was informed by the shortfall in the allocation to LGs from the Federation Account. Clarifying further, an official of the state Ministry for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs said the amount that accrued from the Federation Account to the 25 LGs for March 2020 was, after statutory deductions, short of the monthly wage bill of workers on the payroll of the LGs. This, Bosso said, was why LG workers in the state received only 80 per cent of their March 2020 salary.
Although some of the affected workers noted that the 20 per cent deduction was meant to provide palliatives to the vulnerable to cushion the effect of the stay-at-home, the Chief Press Secretary to the state governor, Mrs Mary Noel Berje, told journalists that no money was given to LG chairmen aside the relief materials in form of grains that were given out for distribution.
If the shortfall in the Federation Account Allocation to LGs for March 2020 is believed to be the whole truth, as tendered by the ALGON chairman in Niger State to explain the deductions, workers salary is not the best subhead to seek deductions to make up for deficits in allocation.
Even if the 20 per cent deducted from the LG workers’ salaries was to be used to fight the spread of the coronavirus, there are other alternatives open for deduction to allow for workers’ salaries to be paid in full.
LG chairmen in Niger State could have offered their security votes for deductions or even forfeited their monthly overhead cost. After all, there is less need for overhead cost during this period of lockdown when government offices remain closed. Security and overhead are two subheads that run into huge sums of money sizable enough to pay 100 per cent of workers’ salaries.
Like federal lawmakers and ministers, LG chairman could have also sacrificed a fraction of their salary to either augment the shortfall in allocation or provide palliatives as the case may be.
Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Nigeria’s revenue was dwindling and there were warnings that reliance on monthly federal allocations was no longer helpful for states and LGs in the country. The declining role of oil in the global economy is a counsel for these two tiers of government to source for sustainable sources of revenue.
While we encourage LG chairmen in the country to discover, develop and invest in the natural resources available in their respective areas, we call for the immediate refund of the 20 per cent deducted from the March 2020 salaries of LG workers; at worse, before any deductions are made from the April allocation.
