BudgIT, a civic-tech organisation leading the advocacy for transparency and accountability in Nigeria’s public finance, has expressed disapproval over certain state governments’ refusal to pay the monthly salaries accruable to its civil service workers in their states as and when due.
BudgIT expressed this disapproval after its empirical survey across the 36 states in the federation revealed that about 12 states owe their workers at least one month’s salary as of July 28, 2022.
The survey was conducted to spotlight and identify state governments that have consistently failed to meet the essential requirement of governance and employee compensation, thereby subjecting their workers to unpaid labour and harsh living conditions.
While the findings from the survey favoured states that are not in arrears, others like Abia, Adamawa, Ebonyi, Ondo and Taraba owe 3 years or less in payments.
For example, Abia currently owes its state tertiary institution workers Six months’ salary, while Ebonyi has not paid its pensioners in the last six months. Secretariat workers in Taraba complained of irregular salary payments for up to six months, while lecturers at state tertiary institutions and midwives in the state-owned hospital in Ondo State have not been paid a dime in the last four months.
According to Joseph Anthony, a secondary school health institution worker in Abia, the State Government has not paid salaries in the last 10 months. The payment made to him in 2021 was his basic salary, which did not include other allowances.
Many state governments are currently battling with the inability to meet up with salary obligations, alongside rising debt, interest rates and inflation.
Impact on workers
While speaking about the current realities of affected workers, BudgIT’s Head of Research and Policy Advisory, Iniobong Usen, noted that civil servants’ remuneration, whether at the state or federal levels – as and when due – is a necessary part of the employer/employee relationship.
“This affects the smooth working of the government. This is not only because the survival and livelihood of civil servants depend on timely salary payment but also because the government’s refusal to pay smacks of the disregard for the legal obligation to pay.
“Nigerian civil servants are unfortunately no strangers to delays and gaps in monthly salary payments. Despite belonging to the executive implementing arm of the government, they have been left without payments in many instances. With several states guilty of this non-payment, civil servants are often at wit’s end at ‘month end’,” he added.
The delay in salary payments to civil servants in Nigeria has been prominent for at least half a century, even currently at the national and sub-national levels.
This state of affairs, BudgIT said, has been affirmed to constitute a breach of the basic contractual provisions that exist between an employer and employee, and failed to recognise national legislation on employee rights at the continental and international levels.
Despite relatively small coverage, there is clear evidence that several states are struggling to meet up with paying the new Minimum Wage, which was increased to N30,000, a situation which is worse off when compared to the periodic payment of the previous N18,000 minimum wage.
It noted that many state governments are currently battling with the inability to meet up with salary obligations, alongside rising debt, interest rates and inflation.
BudgIT attributes this state of affairs to a combination of ‘governance failure’ bordering on mismanagement and administrative inefficiency, an unnecessarily large wage bill, which itself may be due to poor planning and hiring practices.
This, it said, is also a problem of broader macroeconomic downturns, which in some sense are beyond the control of the state governments, as they have little influence over monetary and fiscal policies.
BudgIT, therefore, called on the various state governments to urgently address this glaring inability to pay state workers’ salaries, as the attitude, enthusiasm, productivity and survival of state workers and their families are directly related to the timeliness of their remuneration.
