Head of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has insinuated that many states in Nigeria are struggling to pay workers’ salaries because of sharp practice in the public sector.
Zamfara state governor and chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Abdulaziz Yari, had said on Wednesday that it was impossible to implement the N30,000 minimum wage without downsizing the workforce all over the country.
But Oshiomhole said as a governor, he told his colleagues that payment of salaries was no burden, but a means of enhancing the development potential of the state.
”In economics, when people work and get paid, purchasing power is enhanced and because purchasing power is enhanced producers will respond to that by seeking to produce more goods and services. And in the process they will recruit more hands,” he said during a television programme.
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The former president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said that Nigeria’s major problem was stealing of public resources in the name of salary payment and as such called on governors to block all loopholes aiding corruption.
“I think, again, this is where President Buhari stands out clearly. He has publicly asked public sector employers; how do you sleep when you have not paid your employers for one year. But he did not stop at lamenting it, he went on to provide the much-talked-about bailout fund and said, ‘please use this money to pay your workers and pay pension arrears…”
“The real problem in the public sector is money being stolen in the name of salaries, I find it embarrassing when we talk about ghost workers. And I ask the question, who counts ghosts. It is only in Nigeria that ghosts are known.”
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