Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State has promised to clear the backlog of salaries, allowances, and pensions before the end of his tenure on May 29, 2023.
During the Workers’ Day celebration in Gusau, the state capital, the governor made this announcement via the Head of Service, Hon. Kabiru Mohammed Gayari.
“We have started implementing the N30,000 minimum wage but something happened that disrupted our attention, making us not to fully implement it,” he disclosed.
Delivering his speech, however, the Zamfara State chairman of the Trade Union Congress, TUC, Comrade Saidu Mudi, lamented that civil servants in the state are not happy with the government as it has neglected the agreement signed with the labour forces.
He said: “Workers’ rights are sets of principles as clearly defined by the International Labour Organization, ILO, an agency of the United Nations whose aim is to guarantee fairness, healthy and equitable working conditions for employees by setting forth the International Labour standard.”
He lamented that despite all efforts made by the two labour forces in the state, the issue has not yet been resolved.
He pointed out that workers’ salaries and allowances are no longer paid by grade levels as the government chooses to pay what it likes to civil servants in the state.
Mudi further bemoaned the unpaid workers’ salaries and allowances for March and April despite that the state has received its share of the federal allocations.
He said: “Regrettably, the Zamfara State civil servants have experienced their worst moments within these two months because it was the entire Muslim Ummah across the world that observed fasting in the holy month of Ramadan and Eid el-Fitr Sallah celebration, but Zamfara State workers were subjected to all kinds of hardships.
“Many of us were not able to provide clothing to our families as a result of the non-payment of salaries and allowances during the Sallah period. Many could not pay utility or medical bills, talk less of medical bills of their families which indeed is very unfortunate.”
In his submission, the chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in the state, Comrade Sani Haliru appealed to the government to stabilise the blueprint of the approved and constitutional rights of workers.
According to him, it is disheartening that the state government heavily depends on monthly allocations and grants from the federation account despite abundant resources in the state which he said need to be positively utilised to move forward and promote infrastructures that could bring or improve internally generated revenues.
“To this end, I implore the state government to improvise other means of economic independence to avoid over-reliance on the central government. We need to copy from neighbouring states and add to our technological experience to boost our revenue,” he said.
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