Unpaid Workers’ Salaries: My Administration Lived Within Its Means, Says Aregbesola

Rauf-AregbesolaGovernor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State yesterday said his administration has lived within its means in trying to fulfill its financial obligation to workers.

The governor said this in his address titled: “We shall overcome” during the inauguration of the sixth House of Assembly.

Aregbesola said contrary to speculations in some quarters, his administration has not exposed the state unnecessarily neither was it financially reckless.

He added that the present administration will stop at nothing to ensure that people enjoy life abundantly.

“The problem began in 2012 when our expenditure increased as a result of the hike in minimum wage.

“This was when we applied the increase to junior workers only. Then, our total emolument rose to N2.7 billion from the N1.4billion that I met in November 2010.

“By December of that year, it hit N3.5 billion. At the same period, our statutory allocation increased marginally from N2.1 billion to N2.5 billion. By July 2013, our total emolument hit N4 billion; our statutory allocation was N2.1 billion. By then, we had extended the increase to other workers.

“The summary reveals that in the last two months of 2010, we received a net allocation of N4.2 billion and paid N3.6 billion. This left us with a net gain of N573 million from our statutory allocation.

“In 2011, we got N29.9 billion allocation and spent N25.8 billion on emolument with a net gain of N4 billion. However, in 2012, we got N28.4 billion and expended N31.6 billion on emoluments.

“This left us, for the first time, with a deficit of N3.2 billion. The following year, 2013, our statutory allocation had dropped to N26.4 billion while our emolument rose to N36.9 billion.

“This gave us a N10.4 billion deficit. Last year, our statutory allocation reduced to N19.3 billion and by this time we were defaulting on some of our obligations on emolument, which had also dropped to N22.4 billion, but still left us with a deficit of N3 billion.

“In summary, between November 2010 and December 2014, we got a total statutory allocation of N108.3 billion and our expenditure on emolument was N120.4 billion.

“It left us with a total deficit of N12 billion”.

Aregbesola explained that aside from expenditure on salaries, if other emoluments are to be included, the total recurrent expenditure will be N206 billion and statutory allocation N108.3 billion.

He also noted that adding other accruals from Abuja, it will amount to N176.5 billion, leaving the state with a deficit of almost N30 billion.

After the inauguration, Speaker Najeem Salaam was re-elected for a second term.

Also returned were Akintunde Adegboye (Deputy Speaker) and Timothy Owoeye (Majority Leader).

Oladejo Makinde was elected Minority Leader while Folorunso Bamisayemi was elected Chief Whip.