Why we slashed street sweepers’ salaries from N15,000 to N10,000 — Taraba agency

The Taraba State Environmental and Sanitation Agency has explained why it reduced the monthly pay of street sweepers from N15,000 to N10,000, saying the decision was taken to keep the agency running amid rising costs and a growing workforce.

The agency’s chairman, Illiya Kefas, made the clarification on Tuesday, saying the salary cut was an internal administrative decision and not an order from Governor Agbu Kefas.

His explanation came a day after he told journalists in Jalingo that the reduction followed a directive from the governor to manage available resources after the recruitment of new workers into the state and local government civil services.

But speaking again on Tuesday, Kefas said the decision was solely made by the agency because of its expanding workforce and operational expenses across Taraba’s 16 local government areas.

“The arrangement was an internal decision to sustain the activities of the agency and not a directive from the governor,” he said.

The latest cut is the third change in the earnings of the street sweepers since the programme began in 2023.

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When the workers were first employed under the Operation Keep Taraba Clean programme in 2023, they were paid N20,000 monthly.

In March 2024, their pay was reduced to N15,000 after they were reportedly told to either accept a N5,000 cut or lose their jobs.

By May 2026, they received N10,000, marking another N5,000 reduction and bringing their earnings down to half of what they earned when the programme started.

Defending the latest cut, Kefas said the agency handles a large number of workers and spends heavily on sanitation activities across the state.

“We have 16 Local Government Coordinators, including Ngada and Yantu. We pay some N200,000, while the least among them earns N100,000. We also have a monitoring team,” he said.

He added, “We also have supervisors. The least we pay them is N50,000 per person, and we have 10 of them.”

According to him, the agency also spends over N5 million every month feeding casual workers involved in sanitation work across the 16 councils.

“There are more than 100 casual staff across the 16 local governments. We spend over N5 million on feeding the boys who work on a daily basis,” he said.

Kefas said team leaders overseeing roadside sanitation also get daily allowances, while the agency spends a lot on waste evacuation and other environmental activities.

He insisted that with these financial responsibilities, reducing the street sweepers’ pay became necessary to keep operations going.

In a text message sent to journalists on Monday, the chairman also said workers who were unhappy with the new pay could leave.

“I have the right to ask my people to work at N10,000. Anyone interested will work, and if you are not, you can go your way,” he stated.

He added: “There is nothing wrong to slash their salaries. Do you journalists ask us how we manage the agency?”

Kefas also blamed the agency’s financial pressure on limited allocations from the Federation Account and the state government’s growing wage bill after the recruitment of new civil servants.