Senator Ali Ndume (APC Borno South), Thursday, threatened to quit Nigeria if relevant authorities refuse put things in order by diffusing what he called the ‘ticking time bomb’ .
Ndume made the threat while reacting to submissions made by the Chairman of the National salaries, Income and wages Commission (NSIWC), Mr Ekpo Nta before the Senate Committee on Establishment where the lawmakers descended heavily on the federal government over embargo placed on employment and yet with yearly increases on recurrent expenditure.
Failure of Nta to tell the committee the total amount of salaries and wages the federal government pays its workforce yearly, infuriated many members of the committee who wondered why recurrent expenditure in yearly budget is not decreasing on account of embargo placed on employment and retirements at the various agencies .
Specifically, Senator Ali Ndume in taking up the NSIWC boss, said he supposed to know the total wage bill of the federal government workers in arresting the dangerous trend of increases in yearly recurrent expenditure component of the budget without new recruitments and even with retirement of workers on yearly basis.
“Honestly speaking, time bomb is ticking out there with this policy because of the doors shut out against millions of youths seeking for employment through the embargo.
“Making it worrisome is the fact that despite the policy, since 2018 till now, recurrent expenditure components of yearly budget have been increasing.
“In 2018, it was N3.5trillion , N4trillion in 2019, N4.5trillion in 2020, N5.6 trillion 2021 and N6.83trillion in the projected N16.39 trillion 2022 budget.
“It is bad for recurrent expenditure to be increasing on yearly basis without increase in the number of workforce through required recruitments.
“The embargo is turning to a time bomb that can explode at anytime as witnessed in some countries in recent past.
“Personally, I’m already thinking of where to run to if the avoidable crisis is not averted. I visited Ghana and Niger recently in this regard,” he stated.
