By John Oghojafor
Against the backdrop of the several months’ salaries owed about 20,000 local government workers in Delta State, the State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, while backing massive retrenchment of workers in the state has asked Local Government Chairmen across the 25 councils to either prune down the size of their workforce or slash workers’ salaries as the situation appears to be getting worse.
Governor Okowa dropped the bomb-shell on Tuesday during his quarterly press briefing at the Delta State Government House Press Centre in Asaba.
According to the governor, the Local Government administration is a separate tier of government from the state hence, he said, “it is not the obligation of the state government to support the local government councils on the payment of their staff salaries.”
He said there is nothing he can do to offset the over 10-month salary arrears owed local government workers and averred that it will not be logical for him to employ more civil servants into the state’s civil service, which he said was already having about 60,000 workforce.
The governor noted that with an average of 700 staff in each of the 25 Local Government Councils in the state, the third tier of government is over-staffed, adding that as an independent level of government, it is the duty of the Council Chairmen to find a way of cutting down on their staff strength to be able to sustain a manageable wage bill.
Okowa also alluded to the fact that salary levels of staff of Local Government Councils in the state were the highest in the country, adding that it is either the Councils cut down on their salary level in line with what is obtainable in other parts of the country or fashion-out a way to cut down on the over-bloated work force of the Councils.
The New Diplomat learnt that all the 25 Local Government Councils in the state are owing staff salaries for different months, the highest being Ethiope East Local Government Council that is owing 14 months staff salary arrears.
It was gathered, Okowa, despite controlling monthly federal allocations belonging to the local government with 81% of the fund often expended on payment of salaries of primary school staff, leaving a paltry 19% for the local government councils, has repeatedly said his administration is not responsible for the payment of Local Government workers’ salaries saying, the councils are over-staffed.
In spite of his continuous lamentation on the huge wage bill of the state and local government civil servants vis a vis the dwindling federal allocation, Okowa was said to have continued to engage more political aides without specified portfolios for appointees coming largely from political cronies in a more or less ‘jobs for the boys fashion.’
Recently, the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) national body staged a peaceful demonstration at the National Assembly, Abuja calling on the lawmakers to effect an amendment on the constitution to grant the third tier of government an autonomy just as they urged the federal government to prevail on the state governments to assist in shouldering the responsibility of the Council staff and primary school teachers’ salaries.
The Delta State Chapter of NULGE had also staged peaceful demonstration in Uvwie and Warri South Local Government Councils, calling on Governor Okowa to intervene and address the issue of backlog of salary arrears owed Council workers.
