Tension in Jigawa over LGs non payment of salaries

Ahmed Abubakar, Dutse

Tension is brewing in Jigawa State as workers of various local governments and local education authority in the state are yet to receive their June salary despite the kick-off of local government financial autonomy.

The delay appears to coming on the heels of the state government policy of paying workers’ salary on the 25th of every month including that of local government workers and this has been consistent in the last four years.

The state deputy governor, Alhaji Umar Namadi, attributed the delay in payment of workers’ salary to the late disbursement of money from the federal allocation.

He also explained that the state would have supported the local governments account but for the new circular prohibiting state governments from tampering with local governments funds.

He explained that “before the new circular on local government financial autonomy, the state government used to lend money to local governments for the payment of salaries in case there is a delay from federal allocation. And we have been doing this to meet up with the policy of paying workers’ salary on the 25th of every month,” he said.

“Based on the new policy of local government financial autonomy, it is not feasible for the state to lend them money because that might raise suspicion during the payment.”

However, to tackle such financial challenges, we are considering increasing the local government stabilisation fund from 2.5% to 5% monthly which we hope in the next one to two years, the councils would have enough savings to use in case of any bad situation.”

The deputy governor, however, reiterated the commitment of the Governor Muhammad Abubakar Badaru administration to continue supporting local governments in the state to tackle their financial challenges despite the new financial autonomy.

He noted that, even in this month, Hadejia local government was given N40 million from the state stabilisation fund to bridge the N35 million deficit in its monthly expenditure and to use the remaining N5 million for the running of the local government affairs.