The Enugu state House of Assembly has urged the state government to deduct the salaries of primary school teachers and other local government staff from the state’s Joint Allocation Committee (JAC).
This follows the adoption of a motion on the need to unify the salaries of primary school teachers and other local government workers sponsored by the member representing Nkanu West constituency, Hon Iloabuchi Aniagu, during plenary in Enugu, Tuesday.
Presenting the motion, Aniagu recalled that the Speaker of the assembly, Chief Edward Ubosi, had in 2015 led a committee on a verification exercise to all the 17 Local Government Areas, where it discovered anomalies associated with the late payment of primary school teachers and other local government workers.
He noted that unifying the payment system would go a long way in addressing the issue of late or half salary payment of these categories of workers.
According to him, embarking on infrastructural development, irrespective of the importance attached to it, without paying the salaries of her workers is a breach of government policy for any local government.
He urged the state government to deduct these salaries before appropriating the remaining funds to respective councils.
“Enugu state is among the few states in Nigeria that does not owe salaries of her workers, even in the face of dwindling federal allocation and internally generated revenue.
“The reverse is that case with the local government where some of the LGAs pay half salaries to her workers while some pay in arrears. This is caused by the deduction made on individual local government area’s account based on the number of teachers in the council.
“It will interest you to know that most of the teachers posted into interior areas work for their transfer to the urban and semi-urban local governments, thereby increasing the wage bill of those local government areas” Aniagu said.
Also contributing, Hon Chukwuka Eneh representing Udi South constituency said deducting the salaries of primary school teachers and other local government staff from JAAC would enable the state government pay them together with state workers.
Another member representing Oji-river Constituency, HonJeff Mba, commended the sponsor of the motion, which would address the rural-urban immigration among primary school teachers and local government workers.
He said that the motion would save the state from experiencing financial crisis in the payment of its workforce, especially now that the whole world is facing this deadly pandemic.
Assembly urges state govt to deduct salaries of LG staff from JAC
