Rabiu Omaku
The Chairman of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, Nasarawa State chapter, Hon. Aminu Mua’zu Maifata has said that only 4 Local Governments out of the 13 Local Governments can pay wage bill of it civil servants without any preponderances.
Maifata gave the indication, during a press briefing held at the council Secretariat.
He listed the four viable Local Governments to include, Awe, Keana, Keffi, Wamba as the only council’s that are financially buoyant to settle monthly wage bill at the third tier of government.
Mua’zu Maifata acknowledged that Akwanga, Doma, Karu,
Kokona, Obi, Toto, Nasarawa Eggon, Nasarawa, Lafia are insolvent.
He gave reasons why the majority of the councils can’t pay salaries due to the over blunt of Local Government civil servants with a list of ghost workers which he explained including names of dead persons and retirees.
“Our inability to pay June salary was not due to deduction by the State Government rather by some gullible officers”.
“For the record, the N60m realized was monies realized cut across the 9 Local Governments he added.
Another reason he gave was that Local Government exhausted the savings that were used to augment salaries before.
“Before the screening exercise we are spending N219m as monthly wage bill and after the exercise, we are paying N197m, and what we have on the ground was N137m.
The Chairman explained that the Lafia Local Government is spending N8m monthly on political officeholders.
“What we did in Lafia to enable us to pay salary was to borrow N51m from our VAT account to augment June salary.
He added that ”again from the actual amount from the Federation account, there are statutory deductions such as 1% as training fund,5% for traditional rulers and VAT.
Stating that N22m was also deducted as Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and Housing funds.
