Civil servants fault Okonjo-Iweala on N1.8tn wage bill

The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria has asked the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to substantiate how N1.8tn is being spent annually on wages of workers in the federal public service.

The organisation also stated that records at its disposal showed clearly that the staff strength in the entire public service was about 870,000, and not 1.2 million being carried about by the minister, “unless there is a hidden agenda somewhere.”

The Secretary-General of ASCSN, Mr. Alade Lawal, in a statement obtained on Thursday, emphasised that it had “become necessary for the minister to give the graphic details of the amount so that Nigerians could be better informed on the issue.”

Our correspondent recalls that the minister had, through the Director-General, Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu, while exchanging views with the House of Representatives Committee on Health in respect of the ongoing nationwide strike by the Nigerian Medical Association, claimed that the Federal Government’s wage bill for public servants had risen from N857bn in 2009 to N1.8trn, while the staff strength in the public service was 1.2 million.

But Lawal called on Okonjo-Iweala to state publicly how much of the N1.8tn was consumed by public servants, including ministers, special and ordinary advisers, personal, senior and junior assistants, senators and members of the House of Representatives, including their huge quarterly allocations.

He said, “It is also necessary for Dr. Okonjo-Iweala to tell Nigerians how much salary is paid by each Ministry, Department and Agency per year, including their staff strength. When you have done these analyses, it will become crystal clear how much of the N1.8tn is consumed by the whopping emoluments of the political office holders.”

According to him, it is a common knowledge that Nigerian political office holders are the highest paid in the world, with most of them earning more than the President of the United States of America, while Nigerian workers are among the least paid in Africa.

Lawal added that the Federal Government should not hide under the guise of high wage bill as a justification to continue to pay peanut as salary to civil servants in particular and other public service employees in general, “while the political office holders continue to rampage and pillage the national treasury with impunity.”

The ASCSN recalled that in January, Okonjo-Iweala, through Okogu had told the National Assembly that the civil service had more than one million workforce, while 37 per cent of the annual federal budget was spent on civil servants’ salary, whereas the staff strength of the core civil service is about 100,000, as against 870,000 staff for the entire public service.

“This is why the union then demanded their removal from office if both “experts” cannot distinguish between the core civil service and the public service. At any rate, it would appear that as an agent of the World Bank and the IMF, Okonjo-Iweala is bent on impoverishing Nigerians until they lose their dignity as human beings,” Lawal stressed.