Sir, can you explain to Benue people the true position of the welfare of primary school teachers with regards to payment of their salaries?
Recently, so many journalists in the state were asking me through phone calls on teachers’ salaries and the current strike the primary school teachers decided to embark upon and the position or decision of government on the issue. So, I decided that it is better for us to come together like this to interact so that the general public will know exactly what is happening.
The issue of primary school teacher’s salary has been an issue in the state for quite some time and it is all known to us. When we came in, we took the issue of the welfare of primary school teachers as a priority. You will recall that when the present administration of Governor Gabriel Suswam came in, there were quite a lot of outstanding issues including unpaid salaries, death benefits, leave grants, promotion, among other things. The Governor in his wisdom decided that he would make the welfare of teachers his own priority, so we had to re-arrange our financiers in such a way that we could attend to all the issues that were outstanding. You will recall that the outstanding salaries were paid, the issue of death benefits that were hanging for almost six years were settled, their leave grants that amounted up to N2.2 billion were also paid to all the teachers and so many other things that concerned their welfare were settled.
After all those, you will recall that our teachers in April, 2010, were almost going on strike on the issue of 27.5 per cent wage increase that their national body had bargained with the federal government and we took the matter also to the governor and he said we should re-arrange our priority in such a way that we could accommodate the 27.5 per cent increase that the teachers were asking for. We went to work and we were the first state in Northern Nigeria to start paying our teachers the 27.5 percent increment of their salary. As at that time, no other civil servant in the state was taking the kind of money our teachers were taking; indeed so many people wanted to cross over to teaching because it was more beneficial to the teachers than others.
But the teachers are still complaining that they have not been paid for long now. Has there been any period that the state government did not pay teachers’ their salaries?
I want to clearly state that our administration has kept faith with the policy and there was no month that we owed teachers’ salary. We did pay our teachers salary up till the moment that I am talking to you. I want to clearly put it on record that Benue State Government does not owe teachers in the state any kobo. We have paid them up to the day that we are talking.
It is important for us to know what is happening now. When Federal Government introduced the issue of minimum wage, the N18, 000 minimum wage, labour went into negotiation with their various states including Benue as well and some agreements were reached that minimum wage should commence and for the state government to commence the minimum wage payment to our teachers it was not easy because the resources that were available to us were not enough. We did every financial engineering and re-alignment to ensure that we commence minimum wage; we went into agreement with them and in August, we commenced payment with them. In August, we commenced payment of minimum wage to teachers; I want us to understand the basic point here. The salaries that we pay to our teachers before the recent increment that gave birth to the N18, 000.00 minimum wage were already clearly above minimum wage that were established by the federal government because we know our teachers are all NCE holders going by the standard that has been set. Their grade level start from level 7 and based on their own salary scale which was clearly higher and peculiar to them, they were collecting money very clearly above what was obtained anywhere.
But we said in the spirit of fairness, there should be a standard for teachers as well and we started paying teachers on the first of August and their complain is that what we are paying them, though clearly above minimum wage was not the same with other people.
Hence, they decided that as at 25th October, they would embark on a strike action. Now, there are basic explanations to this, the Federal Government set up the N18, 000.00 minimum wage; that pay within the resources that are available to them, without consultation with states, which was implemented as you are aware. It is clearly the responsibility of the third tier of government to handle primary school teachers, which has been our cry ever since that this responsibility should be transferred to the Federal Government because it is the only way that there will be a solution to the current problem.
The local government takes the least in sharing of money at the federation account. As you are aware, for the past two months, the federal government through the federation account brought up a new policy that revenue budget that were given at the beginning of the year will no longer be augmented, that they would send to the states exactly the amount of money shared to them at that month. The explanation goes like this, at the beginning of every year, the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission give a revenue budget to states and local governments, that budget is the base for planning; that you will know that no matter what you are expecting, it is the threshold or amount you will receive at the end of the month. With that you can plan and when the share is short of this revenue, the federal government goes to reserve, take some money and augment. It is to make it up, the revenue budget that was given.
Those of you that have been following the development will know that two months ago, federation account announced that no more augmentation of revenue. In essence, the budgets that were used are now set aside.
Whatever money the federal government releases from selling crude oil in a particular month will be what will be given to the states, whether it is up to the revenue budget or not that was only two months ago. They invited the states to the federation account on two occasions, they disagreed with the figures and on the third time, the federal government refused to invite the states and decided to post the money into their account; that this is what we have for you, take it or you leave it.
If you have been following the development, the governors of the opposition parties have teamed up and declared that they are going to sue the federal government as a result of the steps the federal government has taken in terms of the deduction and the inability to meet the revenue budget. We are not in opposition and so we are not party to that anyway.
However, what we are saying is the changes that have been introduced happen to coincide with the payment of minimum wage to teachers.
Notwithstanding, the changes didn’t stop us from paying the new minimum wage structure we had arranged for them. For August, 2013, the money was paid to them, for September it was paid to them and for this month that we are in the allocation has been sent to them. It has been pretty difficult for the third tier of government now because you are aware that the Local government allocation is not meant for payment of salaries alone because it is also money that ismeant for development of the third tier of government and not just for salaries. Here in Benue State, we use our allocation one hundred percent for salaries for very obvious reasons.
Why is it so sir?
You are aware that Benue has the highest number of civil servant in the entire North Central Nigeria; we have 29,000 staff spread across the 23 Local Governments of the State, we have 25,000 teachers on pay roll of just the local governments, we have a lot of pensioners that are still being taken care of. In fact, for this month as we are saying, there are other statutory provisions that we could not meet but we decided that teachers must take the minimum wage.
When I listen to the radio, so many people were saying that teachers were collecting N10, 000.00 or less than theN18, 000 and that was why they went on strike. Others were saying teachers were not paid at all and that was why they went on strike. All those were not true because as I am taking to you, we do not owe the teachers any kobo. We have N2.8 billion on statutory allocation and N5.56 billion on VAT, under normal circumstance, the VAT is supposed to go to projects and development but we combined everything and give to our people.
Look at what we have this month, so many local governments did not get up to N100 million and by the time you remove for teachers, pension and pay to SUBEB then go to honour the one percent to the Local Government Service Commission for supervision and all that and we have quite a lot of cases in court that has been decided that we agree to pay, we stagger them and pay.
Even people that the local government has owed for quite some time even before we came in, all these we set aside so that we can enable our teachers to benefit from the new salary structure and the minimum wage.
So what is happening is not because the government is insensitive but because the allocation due to us is quite small to meet the number of obligations we have to meet in a month, in the entire north central, Benue is the most educated state, we are more than 5 million people; we have a lot of graduates. To worsen it on the scale structure of the federal allocation, we are on number 28 out of 36 states. So, the position is really bad in terms of funds coming in and as it is today, we have been fighting and fighting to see how we can improve on our IGR, which is internally generated revenue at the local government level. I’m talking as the man supervising the Local Government in the State.
What has your office been able to do to reduce this burden?
To consciously ensure that Benue get a bigger allocation at the third tier, indices that are basic for allocation, when I came in as a Special Adviser on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, I started working on that and I want to clearly say that it is one of my biggest achievements in the office that the indices that we have put together for this particular year which will form the basis of allocation are almost three times what they were using before. Because consciously, I looked at them and I said how can we improve on that? We looked at the revenue generation or collection, education enrolment, hospital births among other things and consciously worked it out to ensure that we have a better deal at the federation account, by the time this is put in place,maybe there will be little improvement on what we will be receiving from the federation account coupled with the measure we are putting together to ensure that our IGR comes out better.
I want to clearly say that based on the revenue available to us, we have given the teachers a very good deal and the structure is there for you people to look at and we have paid up to date. So, the impression that Teachers were being owed money is not true. How many states have paid salary up to date like Benue has done? Kogi State is close to us here, you can find out, Plateau state you remember the other day sacked thousands of staff, but we have managed to put our resources together and prudently applied them to ensure that our people will have a better deal than what is obtainable elsewhere. I decided to call you for this press briefing to pass this fact across to you so that those that are just saying what they do not know can get the fact or the truth of the matter.
Any appeal to the Federal Government?
What we should do is to urge the Federal Government to take over the responsibility of paying primary school teachers and also try to improve on what we generate internally, as internal revenue. If federal government can choose to take a decision that no argumentation is allowed any longer, then one day, something may happen they may not give allocation at all, so we should look inward as to what we can do.
Formerly, we were paying teachers N897 million but with the current arrangement, teachers salary now gulp or take N1.3billion. The 27.5 percent that we paid teachers about four years ago, some states like Kebi, the teachers there are still fighting for the 27.5 percent on the old rate but we within the little resources that we have, said that the welfare of our teachers should be taken into consideration with our constant discussion with the local government to improve on their IGR. Ukum Local Government is generating up to N2 million now from N500.00. Vandeikya used to earn about N100 million when I came in, now they generate about N1 million plus. Otukpo has improved from less than N50, 000 to N90, 000; they used to send close to a million naira. In government organization, you have to use people and be talking to them on several occasions before you get result. In the bank where I worked, before it was not so because there is ownership, unfortunately, in government, there is no ownership that is why I started series of meetings with them to get result.
Most people fail to understand that if you don’t take government business to be your own business there is no way government will be productive or get reasonable result. Our people must get a new re-orientation to know that government is somebody’s business and they have to squarely look at it and put their best to get result. Take the issue of the teachers for instance, I went to one primary school and I discovered that most teachers were not in the school. I then cornered somebody and asked why the teachers were not in school. The person told me that they are teaching in one private school that is paying them less than what the government school is paying them.
Most of these private schools are paying less than twenty thousand but our teachers are going to teach there and they are so committed to that private school to an extent that you wonder what is happening there, but the government schools they look at it as nobody’s business. So if you take government business to be nobody’s business you will not get results.
Even before now, all our teachers were clearly above the N18,000.00 minimum wage but the governor still increased their salaries so that they could also benefit from the new minimum wage and this has been applied from grade level one to grade level six. So, it is just a little short of what their counterparts in the state are taking because our resources can’t meet the demand.