Ogun govt, PDP guber candidate disagree over N1.5bn deduction

The Ogun State Gov­ernment and the gov­ernorship candidate of the Peoples Demo­cratic Party (PDP), Gboyega Nasir Isiaka yesterday trad­ed words over the release of N1.5billion for the payment of the salary deductions and cooperative dues owed workers in the state.

The government and the workers in the state have for some time been at logger­heads over the failure of the Amosun administration to ei­ther refund the money to them or remit the deductions to the appropriate quarters.
In the disagreement, which came barely a week to the governorship election, while the Ogun State Government accused Isiaka, popularly called GNI of allegedly be­ing one of those responsible for the current financial quag­mire the state has found itself, the PDP standard bearer de­scribed the gesture of Gov­ernor Ibikunle Amosun-led administration towards the workers in the run-up to the polls as a “Greek Gift” they should be wary of.
The state government, through the Commissioner for Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun also alleged that Isiaka’s per­sonal financial mismanage­ment while in office as the general manager of the Gate­way Holdings Limited during the administration of the im­mediate past governor of the state, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, contributed to the financial problem the state was now facing.
Adeosun, at a news confer­ence flanked by the Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Adeoluwa Taiwo and the state Commissioner for Informa­tion and Strategy, Alhaji Yu­suph Olaniyonu said although the state government would not want to join issues with the PDP governorship candi­date, it should be noted that Isiaka as the general manager of the Gateway Holdings took N1.6billion loan guaranteed by the state government for projects he never executed.
The finance commissioner also stated that the failure of the administration under which Isiaka served, to pay back the loan had resulted in the incumbent government in­heriting a debt of N2.6billion now being repaid at the rate of N100million per month.
According to her: “With the implementation of minimum wage, the public sector wage bill rose from N4 billion to N6.2 billion monthly. The ad­ditional N2.2 billion monthly directly improved the income levels of all our public sector workers and had a multiplier effect across the state, increas­ing our GDP. We recognise the key role public wages play in the state economy and we have paid salaries up to March 2015.
“As stated earlier, since Oc­tober when we had the general downturn in the national econ­omy, we have been challenged by the effects of a reduction in FAAC, and Internally Gener­ated Revenue. The suddenness of the downturn was such that immediate adjustments could not be made, thus the delay in remittance of salary and co-operative dues.”
Adeosun stressed that con­trary to claims by the PDP standard bearer, the state re­mained financially solvent and did not take any foreign loan.
She added that Governor Amosun had begun to take steps to bolster the economy of the state and to ensure that workers were not retrenched.
But the PDP governorship candidate, in a statement made available to newsmen in Abeo­kuta alleged that the Amosun government had forced the state into a debt trap that suc­cessive administrations might find difficult to be free from.
“Let it be quickly stated that before the hurried an­nouncement of yesterday, Amosun owed the workers six (6) months of “salary deduc­tions” for cooperatives and 28 months of “Non-remitted Pen­sions Deductions.”
Whereas, government al­ways claimed it was financially healthy and usually resort to grandstanding whenever it was accused of being broke, we know that government has mis­managed the state’s resources in a manner so unprecedented and callous.
“Besides the non remitted monies, the regime always found it hard to even pay sala­ries of the workers.”
For a government that re­ceives an average of N4billion monthly Federal allocation and also claims to generate N6billion internally; totalling N10billion expendable funds, to now find it very difficult to pay workers’ salary which is in the region of N2.6billion and also honour bank commit­ments shows that something is fundamentally wrong. Judicial workers just resumed after three months strike. Local gov­ernment workers are currently on strike. Teachers and work­ers were on strike at various times,” he said.