Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has explained why he is is laying off workers in the state.
He attributed the development to overstretched public finances further dwindled by higher wage bills at a time when revenues from the Federation Account Allocations Committee, FAAC, have not increased.
The governor pointed out what Kaduna has been receiving from FAAC since the middle of 2020, like most other sub-nationals, can barely pay salaries and overheads.
He said the rationalisation exercise will also affect political appointees, saying it was aimed at saving funds.
El-Rufai made the clarifications on Monday, April 12, 2021, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Muyiwa Adekeye.
He said: ‘’In November 2020, KDSG had only N162.9 million left after paying salaries. That month, Kaduna State got N4.83 billion from FAAC and paid N4.66 billion as wages.’
“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 March 2021, Kaduna State had only N321m left after settling personnel costs.
“That month, the state got N4.819 billion from FAAC and paid out N4.498 billion, 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.”
While justifying the job cuts, the governor said: “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.
“It is gross injustice for such a micro-minority to consume the majority of the resources of the state.
“The public service is an important institution, and it should therefore maintain only an optimum size.”
Source: The Nation
