State govts and fiscal irresponsibility

In recent times, especially in this season of politics and electioneering campaign, government activities across a number of states have been frequently disrupted by industrial actions or trade disputes between governments and their workers. Often cited as reasons for these disputes are non-payment of salaries and allowances, and in extreme cases, government’s high-handedness, poor conditions of service, and unfavourable or anti-worker policies.

In the past three to four months, there have been quite a number of these industrial actions, with Ebonyi, Ogun, Osun, Akwa Ibom and Lagos States being the most recent, where workers took to the streets to protest either delay or non-payment of their entitlements.

In Ogun, the workers’ strike was called by Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council over unpaid five months deductions from the workers’ salaries. In Osun, the workers protested over delay in the payment of their salaries and allowances, while in Lagos, it has always been a long-drawn battle between the government and doctors in the state hospitals who protest whenever government reneges on its promises. The list is endless.

We are worried that at the same time that workers are protesting government’s inability to pay their salaries, government money is being wasted mindlessly on campaign rallies for re-election into political offices. It is, indeed, a sad commentary on many of the state governments, especially those finding it difficult to pay salaries, with flimsy excuses that allocations from the federation account have dropped following the fall in the price of oil in the international market.

That many of the state governments have been lazy and reckless in their spending is no longer news. All of them, with the exception of a few, turned deaf ear to Federal Government’s advice for them to raise risk management issues that would check the excesses of the governors. We are inclined to believe that if these states had managed their resources very well, they wouldn’t be so cash-strapped that they can’t pay salaries just a few months into the downturn in oil windfall.

A close watch over the activities of some of the state governors shows that many of them never knew nor planned what they were going into public office to do and this explains why they surround themselves with numerous idle aides, relations and political associates who constitute themselves into not just nuisance and distractions, but also conduit pipes to state resources. Corruption and political patronage are twin evils that thrive at every level of governance in Nigeria, but at the states, they have assumed the status of monsters that are only out to devour and pauperise them, giving no room for development and initiatives.

We are alarmed that in many of these states, political office holders, besides their fat salaries and allowances, are given more patronage through the ghost-worker syndrome wherein salaries are paid to non-existent or dead workers, thereby denying the legitimate workers well-deserved promotions and salary raise. It is a shame that in a country where many of the states cannot pay minimum wage of N18,000 per month, the weekend allowances of political office holders run into hundreds of thousands of naira.

To take away this shame from the state governments that are finding it increasingly difficult to pay their workers’ salaries, we advise that such states should start looking inwards with a view to growing their internally generated revenue.

For those of them that don’t have resources that could be exploited, a favourable tax regime is a way out. But that has to come at a cost – the citizens have to be given cause to pay their taxes by providing for them basic infrastructure such as good roads, water, power, etc which support private enterprise. Of course, he who pays taxes deserves to see what his tax is being used for.

Much as we don’t support or canvass industrial actions as a way of making legitimate demands, we are nonetheless impatient with governments that don’t live up to their responsibilities, more so when the reason is as a result of executive arrogance and leadership irresponsibility.