By; Mohammed Kawu, Bauchi.
Bauchi State deputy Governor, Engr. Nuhu Gidado said that he was personally touched by the patience of teachers in the state who undergo prolonged verification exercise in the bid to get their hard-earned salaries.
“Ordinarily if I was not representing His Excellency, I would have step down the podium and join the march-pass in solidarity with these gentlemen and ladies who have been extremely patience with all of us”, he said.
This, Gidado said, because as a Deputy Governor, he was also saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the Ministry of Education as Commissioner, hence his feeling of being touched emotionally by the teachers’ patience.
Engr. Nuhu Gidado, who was addressing workers May Day in Bauchi Sunday, said that he was also worried by the plight of pensioners who sacrificed so much for the services of the state but beclouded by some verification hitches that unnecessarily delays their pensions’ payment.
Gidado, who attributed the whole array to the dwindling fortunes of Bauchi, revealed that the government has been paying N5.1 billion in salaries and wages monthly excluding teachers’ salaries.
In the same vein, he recalled, the state government has to borrow a colossal sum of N400 million to argument last December statutory allocation to the Local Governments in the state for them to effect payment of staff salaries.
“By then we have discovered that everybody within the system was short-changing our innocent workers with an individual signing away salaries of 48 workers in a month. This is unacceptable”, Gidado frowned.
He further stated, “At a point we discovered that not only ghost workers, but real workers were receiving three to four salaries at a go in one month”.
The Deputy Governor, who assured that the state government has the money to pay salary of every genuine worker, warned however that the anomaly could not continue the way it was going even if ‘we could be stoned’.
Gidado lamented that the March 2016 statutory allocation for both the state and local governments was a very embarrassing figure of N3.2 billion, querying “How else do we pay salaries, how else do we run government?
Engr. Nuhu Gidado contented that Bauchi state government will not be deterred as, according to him, it must save the state and equally pay workers their salaries, also describing the situation as ‘painful’.
“Change is not easy, you brought it through prayers, we will definitely suffer but the suffering by the special grace of God will yield out light at the end of the tunnel”, he told the workers rally.
“I promise you, this is personal from me and I’m representing Governor Mohammed Abubakar, is also personal to him, workers are completely number one priority to the Bauchi State Government. We will never fail workers by the special grace of God”, he concluded.
