Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed has declared that he was not elected to pay salaries alone but to provide other dividends of democracy to the people of the state. Mohammed said this when the Christian Community in the state paid him Christmas homage at the Government House on Saturday, December 26, 2021.
He lamented that all the monthly allocation of the state, which amounts to seven billion goes to the payment of workers’ salaries at the expense of capital projects and programmes. He also complained that some workers earn double monthly remunerations thereby inflating the amount spent on salaries.
“People are creating exclusion within the nominal roll in order to cause disaffection between us. Maybe out of the thousands of workers we are paying, some of them will just deliberately be excluded. But the government is providing 100 percent of the money required to pay salaries, and we are trying to do our best to make sure such exclusion where some people are just removed deliberately from the payroll will be a thing of the past.
“We have exited the consultant because some people said he is a problem so that at the end of the day, everybody will get his salary and pension. Pertaining to gratuity, we inherited over N28 billion arrears, we cannot do a miracle, we are paying it as we get some little money that is in excess of the salaries,” he stated.
The governor however said that his administration was working to ensure that any excluded worker is included on the payroll especially with the granting of local government autonomy.
He said: “Already, we have enforced autonomy for the local governments, we are giving them their resources and they have started paying their salaries as from last month. And to our own appreciation, we discovered that nobody in the local governments was excluded in the last salaries because the local governments are paying from the local governments, and we will continue that way.
“We have established a portal in the Ministry of Finance under the office of the Head of Service and anybody who is not paid should come and meet our people and he will be paid immediately.”
Furthermore, Mohammed said: “As Christians and Muslims we should fear God. Some people are collecting double salaries; people are collecting allowances that are not their own.
He told the Christians audience that, “If I fail to perform as a governor, people will laugh at you, because you are the majority that voted me into office, so, I must perform and build roads, hospitals, among others for the benefit and enjoyment of everyone in the state.
He urged them to imbibe the teachings of Jesus Christ in their dealings with others especially those of other faiths and to make peace with one and other.
Copyright PUNCH.
