MAKINDE’S CLAIMS ON OYO N11B WAGE BILL, COVER UP FOR LOOTING

The All Progressives Congress in Oyo State has raised the alarm over the alleged fake figures recently credited to Governor Seyi Makinde as representing the state government’s monthly wage bill and the staff population put at N11 billion and 115, 000 respectively describing it as a “futile attempt to cover up the brazen looting of the public treasury by the present administration of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Media sources had reported last week that Makinde 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.

In a statement issued on Friday and made available to journalists in Ibadan by its Assistant Publicity Secretary, Prince Ayobami Adejumo, Oyo APC 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.

“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 said.

Meanwhile, the state chapter of the APC has also warned Gov. Seyi 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.” Adejumo added.