Akeredolu wants Ondo workers to sacrifice salary arrears as contribution towards development

Ondo State governor, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, has called on workers in the state to sacrifice their outstanding salary arrears owed by the previous administration and see it as part of their contributions to the development and the state.

Akeredolu who made this at the weekend while receiving reports of the Committee on Arrears of Salaries of Public Servants in Akure, Ondo State capital, stressed the need to make sacrifices to develop and move the state forward.

The governor said “If they (workers) meet and say they waived two months, we will be glad but if they insist on having the full arrears, we thank them and will look for ways of paying.

“The government will continue to try and make sure we don’t owe them salaries.”

“Before we present our budget and after presentation, I will have to address the workers to let them know that it’s not possible to use all our money to pay salaries.

“We have said this many times, we must be prepared to make sacrifices because we don’t borrow money to pay salaries, something must be done.

“I thank the people for their efforts and resilience. I know it’s not easy, but it’s also getting increasingly difficult for the government too; but whatever we do, we will try not to owe salaries”

The governor also said the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), needed to be increased very soon to tackle the salary arrears and take care of other things.

Earlier, the chairman of the committee, who is the Deputy Governor, Agboola Ajayi said the salary arrears owed workers by the previous administration amounted to ₦38.57 billion.

“This is not inclusive of the ₦41.5 billion representing outstanding gratuities.

“We came in on Feb. 24, we paid February, March, April salaries and also one month out of the six months salaries owed by the past government.

“What the government is owing now is N34.5 billion, representing five months salaries. Agboola said.

The last administration of former governor Olusegun Mimiko owed the workers six months salaries ‎ (August 2016 to January 2017) before leaving office in February this year.

However, the new governor has paid salaries of February till April 2017 to workers and the arrears of August 2016 leaving the outstanding months to five months.