Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state has proven that he has no intention to go back on his quest to downsize the state’s public and civil services, after sacking 90 political appointees on the payroll of the state.
This is likely to set off another rounds of clashes with labour unions who, last month, shut down the state after 4000 local government workers were sacked. The unions were later prevailed upon to shelve the strike after the federal government intervened.
Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment said on Friday on Arise Television interview, that negotiation is still on to reconcile the labour unions and the state government over the sack.
In spite of the furore generated by the sack gale, Governor El- Rufai said the downsizing of the state’s workforce is the right thing to do at this time considering the resources available to the state.
Speaking on the sack the Kaduna helmsman said “so far 99 political appointees have lost their jobs but we have not commenced rightsizing civil servants.
El-Rufai who made the disclosure at a media chat with some Kaduna-based broadcast journalists on Thursday night, explained that the disengaged political appointees constitute 30 per cent of political office holders.
“We want to be fair with regards to civil servants. We had earlier promised that before we reduce the size of the civil service, we will start with political appointees and we have done that,’’ he said.
No going back on the planned reduction of civil servants in the state, despite the opposition to the process, he said, adding that the government could no longer afford to pay them in the face of dwindling revenue accruing to the state government from the federation account.
He explained that the government decided to start with political appointees and that the state will ensure that any civil servant to be disengaged really deserved to be sacked.
He said “however, civil servants with question marks on the veracity of their data have to be given a chance to clear the doubts before any action is taken on them.”
The governor said that his government has employed 11,000 more workers in the health sector, Kaduna State University as well as primary and secondary school teachers across the state.
The governor disclosed that it is a fallacy to allege that the salaries of political appointees account for the bloated personnel cost of Kaduna State Government.
‘’In March 2021, the salaries of these political appointees amounted to N259 million , while civil servants were paid N3.13 billion, aside from costs related to state contributions to pension, accrued rights and other personnel costs. So, it is false to insinuate that political appointees are the ones that guzzle most of the state’s resources,’’ he said.
Justifying the rightsizing of the public service, he said that all states and the federal government are affected by this shortfall of revenue and some states have even reverted to paying the old monthly minimum wage of N18,000.
‘’Kaduna State cannot continue to use 84% to 96% of our revenues to pay salaries of less than 1% of the population. The rest of our people, all 99% of them, need better schools, hospitals, water supply, roads, markets and support for agriculture to make a living outside government,’’ he said.
The governor however promised that Kaduna state will not reverse the N30,000 minimum wage that it has started paying.
“We are the first government, federal or state, to pay the minimum wage. We will retain the minimum wage of N30,000 and the consequential adjustments that gave most of our civil servants a 66% salary increase. We will also retain the minimum pension of N30,000 monthly.
“The unified Local Government Service continues to pay the minimum wage, even though they varied the consequential adjustments for their workers below the level for state civil servants,’’ he added.
