Yahaya Bello: Unpaid salaries my most pressing issue

Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi state, says payment of salaries owed to workers is the most pressing issue to his administration.

Bello said this on Wednesday while speaking during workers day celebration in Lokoja.

The governor has been accused from all quarters of the state of owing civil servants between 8 to 38 months salary arrears. Bello, however, argued that he only owed the state workers four months salaries.

The governor, who was represented by Folashade Arike, secretary to the government of the state, admitted that there were issues of the welfare of workers that are unsolved.

“We cannot pretend today that there are no issues which remain unresolved around the welfare of our labour force,” read a statement issued by Mohammed Onogwu, the chief press secretary.

“There are indeed several of such issues, but the most pressing of them all, at least to my administration, is how to finally settle the remaining unpaid salaries due to our genuine workers.

“For the bulk of our workers who were cleared without any delays during the screening exercise which ended in  2017, we owe 4 to 5 months.

“The relative fewer numbers who were later re-added to the workforce after they failed screening may be owed more depending on when they were returned to the payroll.

“This category include those whose credentials were denied as fake by their schools but who later managed to resolve their differences with such institutions to the satisfaction of government.

“It will also be recalled that we inherited substantial liabilities in the form of unpaid workers’ remuneration from previous administrations, however, since government is a continuum, we have continued to treat those liabilities as ours and to tackle them as much as we can from our own meagre income.

“The leadership of organized labour in the state has been consistent in partnering with us whenever we receive extraordinary funds into the state.”

According to him, the state would “key into the new minimum wage recently signed into law by Mr. President.”

“As usual, we shall sit down with your leadership to fashion out workable modalities for this,” Bello said.