El-Rufai explains why he sacked 4,000 Government workers

The Executive Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai has stated his reason for sacking 4,000 local government workers on the 6th of April.

In a statement signed by his spokesman, Muyiwa Adekeye, The Governor stated that the Job cut was due to dwindling financial resources and higher wage bills which the government cannot be able to sustain.

Gov El-Rufai stated that it has been receiving from the federal allocation committee since the middle of 2020, like most other sub-nationals, can barely pay salaries and overheads, adding that in the last six months, personnel costs have accounted for between 84.97% and 96.63% of FAAC transfers received by the Kaduna State Government.

“In November 2020, KDSG had only N162.9m left after paying salaries. That month, Kaduna State got N4.83bn from FAAC and paid N4.66bn as wages. In March 2021, Kaduna State had only N321m left after settling personnel costs.”

The statement pointed out that ‘’that month, the state got N4.819bn from FAAC and paid out N4.498bn, representing 93% of the money received.

“This does not include standing orders for overheads, funding security operations, running costs of schools and hospitals, and other overhead costs that the state has to bear for the machinery of government to run, for which the state government taps into IGR earnings.” The statement read in part

The governor further argued that the public service of the state with less than 100,000 employees (and their families) cannot be consuming more than 90% of government resources, with little left to positively impact the lives of the more than nine million that are not political appointees or civil servants, adding that it is gross injustice for such a micro-minority to consume the majority of the resources of the State.

In addition, it pointed out that the measures which the government took to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic have shown clearly that the public service requires much fewer persons than it currently employs.

“in September 2019, Kaduna State Government became the first government in the country to pay the new minimum wage and consequential adjustments. The state government followed this up by increasing the minimum pension of persons on the defined benefits scheme to N30,000 monthly.

‘’This step to advance the welfare of workers significantly increased the wage burden of the state government and immediately sapped up the funds of many local governments.”

“what each public servant earns might be puny in comparison to private-sector wages, but the total wage bill consumes much of the revenues of the state”.

‘’Therefore, the state government has no choice but to shed some weight and reduce the size of the public service. It is a painful but necessary step to take, for the sake of the majority of the people of this state,”  The Governor noted.

The governor justified the job cut stating that it is a painful but necessary step to take for the sake of the majority

‘’as a painful but necessary step to take, for the sake of the majority of the people of this state.’’

‘’The public service is an important institution, and it should therefore maintain only an optimum size,”

 “Faced with a difficult situation, the Kaduna State Government is persuaded that it cannot refuse to act or act in ways that only conduce to populist sentiment, without solving the fundamental problem.”