By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The federal government has denied reports that workers in the federal civil service will, henceforth, get a pay cut as part of efforts to reduce the cost of governance.
It was reported that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, had disclosed on Tuesday that apart from the wage cut, the government was planning to merge some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
But in a statement issued on Wednesday by the Special Adviser to the Minister on Media and Communications, Mr Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, it was emphasised that rather than a cut, the workers will earn more.
The Minister explained that what the national government was planning to do is to harmonise the salaries of its employees by making sure that no federal civil servant on the same grade level earn more than the other as it is being practised at the moment.
Business Post reports that employees of some agencies like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and others earn more than counterparts in other MDAs.
“What the government hopes to achieve is to redistribute wages equally across board. Let us bring our salary structure within government agencies as close or as equitable and fair.
“What we seek to achieve is to create fairness and equity and to reduce cost. With this readjustment, when finally done, workers in the public service will earn fair and equitable wages,” Mrs Ahmed said at the National Policy Dialogue on Corruption and Cost of Governance in Nigeria organised by the Independent Corrupt Practice Commission (ICPC) in Abuja.
Speaking further, she said, “We still see government expenditure increase to a terrain twice higher than our revenue.”
The government had approved a N13.88 trillion budget with a deficit of over N5.6 trillion and projected revenue of N7.98 trillion to fund part of the 2021 budget.
The Minister urged that all agencies must come together to trim their costs, given Nigeria’s dwindling revenue, noting that the government will also remove some unnecessary items from the budget as a move to cut the cost of governance in the country.
“We need to work together, all agencies of the government to cut down our cost. We need to cut down unnecessary expenditures, [especially those] we can do without. Our budgets are filled year in year out with projects that we see over and over again, and also projects that are not necessary.”
“President Muhammadu Buhari has directed that the salaries committee, which I chair, work together with the head of service (HOS) and other members of the committee to review the government payrolls considering stepping down on cost,” she said.
The Minister revealed that the government would also review the number of government agencies in terms of their mandates, adding that for agencies with the same mandate, the government would look at merging the two.
The Chairman of ICPC, Mr Bolaji Owasanoye, noted during the stakeholders meeting that the cost of governance is the “driver of corruption in Nigeria.”
He said that the government had committed to improving the country’s revenue from new and existing sources.
Mr Owasanoye said that the government’s commitment to streamline payroll, removal of subsidies and reduction of the cost of contracts and procurement is all for the benefits of the poor and vulnerable.
He also said that a critical area of concern was what he called ‘payroll padding’ and the ‘phenomenon of ghost workers.’
The ICPC boss lamented the duplication of projects such as the constituency projects of lawmakers and noted that funding for such projects was usually released without any mechanism for monitoring and evaluation and reconciliation of the funding.
He then cited a project executed by the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) which was inadvertently diverted as an executive project.
