SENIOR civil servants are at daggers drawn with the Federal Government over the implementation of the “consequential adjustment” in their salaries, following the adoption of N30,000 as the country’s new minimum wage. A common ground is badly needed as the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council and government’s representatives continue their dialogue.
The Federal Government has offered to pay 10 per cent increase to workers at grade levels 07 to 14 and 5.5 per cent to those at levels 15 to 17, which the civil service unions have rejected. Instead, the unions want 30 per cent salary increase for grade levels 07 to 14 workers and 25 per cent for those in the upper echelons. The N30,000 new minimum wage supplanted the former N18,000 after President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the National Minimum Wage (Amendment Bill) in April. But the wage has yet to be implemented as a result of unresolved little details.
Government had provided a N10,000 adjustment across the board in the 2019 budget for those earning above N30,000 per month, according to the Chairman, National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, Richard Egbule. He said, “However, the unions have refused this offer, saying that because the increase in minimum wage from N18,000 to N30,000 was 66 per cent, therefore, they want 66 per cent increment across the board.” It is unfair, he argued, for an officer at grade level 17 to seek the addition of almost N100,000 to his salary with the 25 per cent proposal, simply because the lowest paid worker had a pay hike of only N12,000. We cannot agree more!
Reason should prevail. Undoubtedly, inflationary pressure and naira devaluation have vitiated the value of workers’ pay. However, labour should be rational in pushing its case. The idea behind the minimum wage primarily is to take care of the interest of the least paid workers, being the most economically vulnerable. Having achieved that, salary adjustments for senior cadres should be treated with caution because of states’ different financial capabilities and the dictates of federalism, as is practised in the United States of America.
However, no matter the way it is resolved, a tempestuous industrial climate is imminent in the 36 states. Clearly, the incongruities endemic in the civil service have not been addressed. Specifically, restructuring of ministries, departments and agencies with overlapping functions has not yet been done; neither has the total weeding out of redundant and “ghost” workers been carried out. These anomalies are why bloated workforces and the concomitant huge monthly wage bills overwhelm the states. The Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, for instance, dismayingly revealed how, on the first day he assumed office, he had to borrow from banks to enable him to pay over N7 billion state’s monthly wage bill. This should not have been so. Many states are in this hell-hole of borrowing to pay or are in salary arrears.
Nevertheless, states can cope with the new wage structures by aggressively implementing the Integrated Payroll and Personnel System to fish out ghost workers and pensioners. A few states, however, have made little progress with it and the adoption of the Bank Verification Number and physical screening of workers. In Kogi State, for instance, 9,720 civil servants failed to show up for screening in 2016, while 3,054 purported teachers who collected screening forms did not return them. A double employment case in the Kogi State University established that one doctor who collects N560,000 monthly there, also collects the same amount from the institution’s teaching hospital.
In Sokoto State, 12,915 ghost workers were discovered on the payroll of the state’s local governments in 2017. Salaries of local governments, which stood at over N2 billion monthly, dropped to N1.6 billion, according to Munir Dan Iya, the then Commissioner for Local Government. But whether it is in Kogi, Sokoto or other states, the sad reality is government’s failure to punish the payroll fraudsters according to the law. This means that the malady may never end.
States should end their dependency on federal allocations and transform into viable economic units to survive the storm. During the tripartite committee’s negotiation to arrive at a figure agreeable to all the parties, governors had offered to pay N22,000, citing the inability of many states to pay the former N18,000 minimum wage. Paradoxically, their logic fell flat in the face of their extravagant lifestyle: travelling in convoys of more than 20 vehicles; hiring of about 1,000 aides in some cases and flying all over the place with chartered jets.
On the other hand, workers are their own worst enemies with their unholy alliance with public office holders to loot the treasury. In Abuja, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission regularly regale the public with tales of billions of naira found in the bank accounts of civil servants, as well as properties, all proceeds of corruption. The decadence is also eloquent at the state level.
An economy subjected to such pillaging is bound to crumble and cannot support workers’ welfare. While a living wage is desirable and welcome, it cannot survive where productivity is hollow and the absorptive capacity of the economy not taken into account. A workforce notorious for lateness to work cannot be productive and justifiably seek welfare favours. In Borno State, its governor, Babagana Zulum, decried this absurdity in May when he visited the state secretariat and observed that only 135 workers out of 12,000 had reported for duty by 9:30am. Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq of Kwara State also experienced this delinquency last week. This is why the position of the Director-General of the International Labour Organisation, Guy Ryder, who visited Nigeria recently, is resonant: “If you pay beyond what production really permits, you will realise that you will not make any progress because it will be artificial.”
Labour, therefore, should be an active anti-corruption agent in the country and a champion of accountability in governance to guarantee the welfare of its members. Its penchant for being a rampart against personnel audit and redundancy in civil service bodes ill for workers’ welfare. A state whose wage bill outweighs its financial resources is doomed. As a result, creativity, reduction of waste and productivity should be the tools of governance if the new wage structure, soon to be agreed on, is to thrive.
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