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From Emmanuel Uzor, Awka
As controversies trail the call for local government autonomy, Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State has disagreed with local government workers over the implementation of the scheme, describing it as an aberration.
Speaking during the flag off of the Anambra State Local Government Service Commission’s week in Awka, Soludo said workers craving for local government autonomy were not properly informed about the underlying disadvantages, adding that the system would not benefit them.
Speaking on the topic, “Value rebirth through digital transformation: Solution Agenda,” he disclosed that over 397 ghost workers have been weeded out of the 21 local government areas through solid verification and value rebirth system.
“Local government autonomy is very funny. There’s an ongoing debate on local government autonomy and the entire staff of local governments put together are moving from one local government to another. In full autonomy, it will mean that each of the local governments will have to employ its own staff and that’s where you will grow and retire.
“This is where the problem is. In the pool staffing that you have had, we have a serious decision to make, the Pension Act was passed and it is not being implemented in Anambra.
If the Pension Act was strictly implemented, nothing would have concerned state with the payment of pension, and you will have go to your local government areas when you retire for your pension and that is where you will hear that out of the 21 local government areas, only about a few would be able to pay salaries.”
Soludo said his administration had to suspend deductions of pension from local government staff because of some discrepancies noticed in the remittance of deductions to the pension board and said his administration inherited accumulated four year gratuity arrears running into about N14.6 billion.
“Temporarily, we suspended deductions of pension because it was not remitted to pension board, and this was to enable us to do a holistic study of what went wrong, and when we finish we can come up with a comprehensive solution.
“There is no place in the world where we have a federating unit where you have three structures of federal, state and local government, and they are all running separately; it’s an aberration. The only reason we pay you is because we have a Joint Account, JAC. I want to assure you that we are working hard to bring back our local government system to be financially viable. We will go back to implementing pension law as designed for sustainability, and we will have a civil service commission soon, so it will deal with the rest of the civil servants’ promotion and other issues.
“Everyday, we are working very hard to put Anambra on the map. We spent two years and refused to borrow. I’m managing your resources and we assure you of transparency because we are top five in fiscal responsibility and we want to remain on top. We met four years of gratuity arrears of N14.6 billion in local government areas, and we are clearing that,” he said.
He, however, said his administration has paid every retired staff of the local government system within the two years in office, and assured that within the next few periods, the remaining arrears of gratuity will be cleared.
On the issue of minimum wage, the Governor said the issue was being negotiated, awaiting Mr. President’s action in sending the bill to the National Assembly.
“Quite frankly, I empathise with you and I wish we can raise the minimum wage to a million, two million or even three million, fantastic. We must recognise that we are discussing the minimum wage that persons running private schools and churches who run schools and even bakery owners can pay. We are not discussing civil service minimum wage. It’s not the minimum salary in civil service. It will be passed into law and any employer who fails to pay will be prosecuted.
“The previous law has elapsed and a new minimum wage is being negotiated between the employers and employees, and when it’s passed, every person who fails to pay, will be prosecuted. Government is just one of the employers.
“In Anambra State, when the minimum wage law comes out, we have already set up a committee of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Accountant General and they will take decision and come back.”
However, workers intermittently interrupted the governor’s address with many of them asking for practical implementation of all workers’ welfare packages by the state government and not theoretical part of it.
They questioned the financial status of the state as regards allocation from the Federal Government and the internally generated revenue with many of them shouting, “pay us our money, where is the federal allocation?”
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