Ghost workers and minimum wage strike in Katsina
One of the recommendations was affirming the NLC/FG agreement on salary increment. Even beyond that was a caveat that agreed across the border increment for workers in the state. Few days after such effort, a warning strike was called by the state’s NLC. Another committee led by an eminent personality in the country, Alhaji Abidina […]
One of the recommendations was affirming the NLC/FG agreement on salary increment. Even beyond that was a caveat that agreed across the border increment for workers in the state. Few days after such effort, a warning strike was called by the state’s NLC. Another committee led by an eminent personality in the country, Alhaji Abidina Commassie, was set up to discuss the matter with the labour.
A day after, the committee and the labour leaders agreed to some certain benchmarks that specifies increment, including steps and levels. A template was developed in which N18.350 minimum wage was offered, with veritable increment to each and every step. But a break that was meant for each of the sides to have further access to the agreement and reconvene was all it takes for the labour leaders to work out and announce an indefinite strike action.
Katsina State, with a population of over four million, has 19,000 workers, many of whom are ghosts. For instance, during a staff auditing in one of the local governments in the state, Bakori local government to be specific, 162 ghost workers were discovered. This is coming at a time when the state government had to, every month, assist with bank guarantees of N800 million before the 34 local government areas could pay salaries. The question is, if in only one local government 162 ghost workers could be found, and that local government is one of the smallest in terms of size and population, how many ghost workers are then there among the 19,000 official workers in the state’s civil servants?
This is the crux of the matter. It is the insincerity in labour’s decision to engage in the strike action that baffles any patriotic mind. The general and normal expectation was that the labour will support, back and even push for the reform that includes staff auditing.
For avoidance of doubt, let’s look at the resources available to the state government from the federation account as well as from locally sourced revenue. Katsina State receives not more than N2.8 billion as allocation and raises not more than N1 billion as internally generated revenue. Out of the total sum, N1.6 billion has been the monthly salary of civil servants before the recent increment. Now, the state requires N2.6 billion to pay the minimum wage.
The governor’s acceptance to pay the minimum wage came at a time when even the federal government had not started the implementation of the new policy. Yet, instead of the labour union to appreciate this effort, it decided to embark on a strike action, damning the consequences of their demand for the surrender of the state’s resources to only 19,000 workers only.
Ahmed Sani Kagara can be reached at [email protected]