Oyo Professionals to Ajimobi: Please tell us why you are not paying workers

A group of Oyo-based professionals known as The Platform has faulted Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s claims that economic meltdown which resulted in paucity of funds was responsible for inability to pay workers’ salaries as at when due.
The group also described as “undiplomatic and in-considerate” recent response of the governor to a seven-day ultimatum issued by the state NLC over failure of the state government to pay five months salaries and arrears owed workers.
Addressing journalists on Tuesday at the end of its marathon maiden meeting held in Oyo town, acting Publicity Secretary, Alabi Olawale, challenged the state Accountant-General to publish for public consumption how much was received from Federation Account, Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), bail-out funds and other Federal allocations between January and December, 2015.
“We are indeed disturbed and uncomfortable as to why the state government finds it difficult to pay workers’ salaries between May last year and March this year, only to pay September, October and November last year, leaving behind August and December last year, as well as January, February and March this year. What happened to the bail-out
funds collected last year from the Federal Government? How much bail-out funds were actually released by the CBN that was insufficient to offset workers’ salaries owed last year? How much was raked in last year as the internally generated revenue?”.
He disclosed that while salary payments for May, June, and July last year were from the bail-out funds, the state government should explain what it did with allocations from the Federal Government in the previous year.
According to Olawale, “records available showed that that the state government collected allocations twice running into millions of dollars between January last year till date from the NLNG. How was the money spent? In the last four years of the governor’s first tenure, how much was the monthly allocation to each of the 33 Local Governments? How much was released monthly by the state government to each of these local councils? Where was the remaining amount of money meant for the 33 local governments? How many physical developments had been embarked upon by the Ajimobi-led government in the last five years or thereabout? All these questions are urgently begging for reasonable responses from the state government”.
The group also disagreed with the state government that its monthly wage is about N5 billion, saying the amount was no longer feasible.
“In the last four years of Governor Ajimobi’s administration, the amount could be feasible because the wage bill included political office holders. But since the governor was sworn-in for a second term in office, which is close to a year now, and without the appointments of political office holders, can the monthly wage bill still remain the same? Definitely not”.
The group, therefore, called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to, as a matter of utmost concern, beam its searchlight into the activities of the past local governments’ caretaker committees in the state during the first tenure of the present administration.