Revenue drop: We won’t renege on salary payment,  AbdulRazaq assures lecturers

The Kwara state governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, Tuesday said his administration will continue to make full salary payment for workers a first line charge despite decline in allocation accrueing to the state from federation account.

He stated that doing so have wider implications for staff welfare and the local economy. 

The governor made the declaration during a meeting with the heads of Kwara state Colleges of Education, including the College of Arabic and Islamic Legal Studies. 

The governor said states are getting abysmally low revenue receipts to the extent that allocations from Abuja to Kwara are hardly enough to pay full salaries and run basic government expenses until the allocation is augmented with IGR which ought to be for infrastructural development and savings for the future.  

“Our policy is to make sure that we pay 100 % salary and this is exactly what we have been doing since day one. All of our allocations and part of IGR now go into paying salary and running basic government expenses. We hardly have leftovers. So, we are struggling because the money is just not there. On top of that, we are having to give money to the local governments to pay 100% salary. After this is done, nothing is left,” he said.

 Speaking further, the governor said, “We are aware of your requests and we truly want to do them. However, we are currently constrained by resources. Allocation has gone down. We are having to augment payment of salary and cost of governance from what is spendable of our IGR.

“The bond we took is such that you cannot take a kobo out of it to do anything not listed in the terms. I urge everyone to bear with us. For now, we are only able to pay salaries 100% and this is in fact a struggle. However, paying salary as and when due is a thing we take very seriously.”