Twenty States in Nigeria are owing workers and pensioners salaries and entitlements ranging from one to 36 months, a BudgIT nationwide survey has shown.
BudgIT, in a statement on Tuesday, said the survey focused on the “frequency of salary payment of six different categories of workers in all 36 states namely: primary school teachers, secondary school teachers, local government workers, state independent workers, pensioners and state secretariat workers.”
It said the survey showed many states defaulted in the payments of pensions and gratuities, with Imo, Taraba and Niger states owing pensioners two to three years in entitlements.
It added that Kogi, Abia, Benue, Oyo, Ekiti and Ondo states have not paid their workers’ salaries in 2017, owing at least four months’ salary.
The survey, however, gave Lagos and Rivers a clean slate, noting that the states have been consistent in the payment of workers’ remuneration and pensioners’ entitlements.
The statement said, “From the survey carried out, we discovered that apart from the fact that 16 states which are yet to pay the pensions of former civil servants in their service, 8 of these states have not paid their pensioners at least 12 months’ pensions, while states like Imo, Taraba and Niger owe pensions of about 2 to 3 years. Notably, these pensioners expressed how unhappy they are, their dissatisfaction with the government and how hard it has been for them to survive.
“In addition to outstanding pensions, we note from our survey, that across all categories, states like Kogi, Abia, Benue, Oyo, Ekiti and Ondo have not paid their workers’ salaries for this year 2017; owing at least 4 months’ salary. However, the likes of Lagos and Rivers have been consistently impressive with their up to date and full payment of civil servants’ remuneration.
“There have been several newspaper publications on states’ civil servants being owed salaries and we are also aware that due to the recent economic downturn FAAC allocations to states and their internally generated revenue have reduced drastically making them unable to pay their staff salaries and run their states effectively. State Governors have recently canvassed that the Federal Government should provide another tranche of Paris Club refund to offset salaries and other liabilities. We hereby ask the Federal Government should tighten its accountability structures for the series of extra-statutory funds that are provided to state government, which currently has reached N1.75tn. We also demand that state government need to more in the transparency in the use of the funds and it is pertinent that only 7 out of 36 states namely Bauchi, Kogi, Kano, Kaduna, Edo, Gombe and Yobe have provided their full 2017 budgets to the public.”.
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