He made this known in Osogbo, while delivering a keynote address during a programme organised by the Osun State Police Command of the Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC).
Aregbesola described as total falsehood insinuation that Osun was not paying workers their monthly salaries, contending that “in spite the economic challenges confronting the nation and Osun State in particular, his administration had not failed in paying the state workforce regularly.
His reaction came as he advocated for the decentralisation of the Nigeria Police Force, with a view to strengthening the effective security of the country from the local, state and federal level.
Aregbesola said he was aware of the insinuation being peddled by those he regarded as adversaries to incite the public against his administration, saying workers in the state have been paid up to June 2017.
According to him, “there is need to educate Nigerians about the salary situation in Osun, because some people have been saying that since my administration is conscious about eradicating poverty why not pay workers’ salaries? Let me make a resounding correction that despite the paucity of funds, it is only a section of workers on grade level 12 and above who receives painfully 50 per cent of their gross salaries based on agreement between the government and the labour union.
“So outside that category of workers on grade level 12 and above, no other receives half of his or her salaries and the workers in this category are just 20 per cent of the state workforce. Outside that, officers on levels 8-10 receive 75 per cent of their salaries while officers on levels 7 and below receive their full pay.
“Contrary to what the naysayers claim about us, all workers in the state have received their salaries up to June this year according to the payment scheme and agreement. The only outstanding salary in Osun is the month we are in and by the grace of God before the month end, every worker will earn their salary in line with the agreement we have with workers,” Aregbesola said.
He added: “As we pay active workers, so we pay pensioners. The only outstanding pay to pensioners is the gratuity and this is due to workers who choose not to participate in the Contributory Pension Scheme and therefore left service in 2011/2012. The amount required to service that gratuity is about N5billion and we keep on telling them that once we have the capacity to so do, we will surely pay them.
While advocating for the devolution of police structure, Governor Aregbesola canvassed for a total decentralisation of Nigeria Police which he said is the only solution to myriads of civil challenges in the country.
Aregbesola stated that “if we can not afford total decentralisation of Police, then let us adopt zonal command structure that will localise policing within the zone. We must have state and local police structure so as to effectively combat crimes and criminality in the country.
“As we all know, most of our security challenges are basically due to inability of our centralised structure of policing in which police do fail to effectively understand the terrain to which perpetrators of many of these crimes operate,” he stressed.
In his lecture, the former Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, attributed some of the socio-economic, religious, political and security challenges in the country to lack of personal sacrificial spirit between and among Nigerian people.
Arase, whose lecture zeroed on the theme of the symposium, “Combating Twin Evil of Terrorism and Kidnapping through People’s Policing in Nigeria,” condemned in its totality what he described as barbaric the incessant cases of kidnapping, terrorism and insurgency in the country.