Politics
N11bn Claim: Oyo Gov Inflates Workers Monthly Salaries – AD Chieftain Raises Alarm
A Chieftain of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in Oyo state, Engineer Oyedele Hakeem Alao, on Friday raised alarm of inflation of numbers of workers in the pay roll of the Oyo state government by the present administration.
Engineer Alao in a statement made available to journalists in Ibadan entitled, “Inflation of number of Oyo state workforce to 115,000 with monthly wage bill of N11b by Governor Makinde: Our people deserve explanation”, faulted Governor Seyi Makinde over his claim that Oyo state ” is currently paying N11 billion as salaries to one hundred and fifteen thousand workers in the state’s pay roll. “
According to the AD governorship candidate in the March 2019 general election, there is the urgent need for the Gov Makinde led administration to give explanation to the people of the state on the actual number of workers presently in the payroll of Oyo state government.
“Our attention has been drawn to the claim by Governor Seyi Makinde that the number of workforce of Oyo state at the moment is 115,000 and their wage bill was N11b monthly, ” he said.
The statement reads in part: “As at the time the immediate past governor was leaving office in May 2019, His Excellency, Senator Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi gave the total number of workforce in the state as 100,000 and their wage bill some N5.2b. This statement by Senator Ajimobi was even corroborated by Governor Makinde in August 2019.”
“It would be recollected that Governor Makinde had, first, late last year, raised an alarm that there was a surprising increase in the wage bill of the state, a development which necessitated the staff audit carried out last year”, saying, “the question that will agitate any sane mind is how can the number of workforce and their wage bill increased overnight by 100.
” Even if the new minimum wage regime is put under consideration, the current wage bill should not skyrocket to that amount because the consequential adjustment of the minimum wage was not up to 50%. Or has Governor Makinde employed more personnel into the Oyo State Civil Service which the citizens and residents of the state did not know about? From investigations among the state workforce, it was discovered that the implementation of the new minimum wage was a ruse as it has had no significant effect on the take-home of some of the civil servants.”.
