By Correspondent in Minna
As the strike by the organized labour in Niger state entered its second day on Tuesday, the state government has appealed to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to reconsider its hard stance on the Governor Abubarkar Sani Bello-led administration to pay salary by percentage due to financial challenges confronting the state.
The Reporters, a media platform, recalled that state government wanted its work force to forfeit certain percentage of their salaries to enable it manage dwindling state resources.
The government identified the challenges to include: overburdened wages and retirement benefits, corona virus, insecurity and as well provision of social amenities.
Our correspondent reports that dialogue between the state government and organized labour, over how much percentage to be deducted from their salaries and for how many months ended in a deadlock.
While the state workforce insists in taking full salary, the state government said it was making efforts to manage the harsh economic realities facing the state.
Niger Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Alhaji Mohammed Sani Idris, while briefing journalists on the predicaments of the state in Minna, said the deferment of the workers’ salaries would only be for the November and December 2020.
He reminded the leadership of organized labour that the economic recession which was why workers’ salaries were to be deducted was a global and national phenomenon and not peculiar to Niger state.
He noted that while state spent almost N2 billion monthly on the payment of salaries, pension gulps N500 million, the monthly allocation from FAAC kept reducing by the months, due to economic recession
The commissioner, who however, could not explain how much the state government generates monthly from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and why only salaries of workers were to be deducted, called on the civil servants to appreciate the enormity of challenges facing the state government.
“We are trying our best as a government to eliminate crises, especially that of security challenges,”Idris said.
He, therefore, urged members of the organized labour to assist the state government in managing the situation, instead of embarking on strike.
He said that, as part of efforts to manage the financial crisis, the state government had to forgo most of its financial obligations to Boards and Parastatals as well as Ministries Departments and Agencies.
According to the commissioner, notwithstanding the challenges, government must not abandon its primary responsibilities to citizenry, adding that the situation the state government found itself which had made salary deductions inevitable.
