Bauchi Governor laments high wage bill, despite not employing

Samuel Luka, Bauchi

Senator Bala Mohammed, the Governor of Bauchi state has decried increasing wage bill despite the state not employing new workers over the years.

The Governor who was speaking during the closing ceremony of a retreat organized by the office of the Head of Civil Service at the state Hajj Camp Friday, regretted that despite migration of workers who retired to pension platforms the nominal roll is increasing.

“Of course somebody has just spoken about the nominal roll, the nominal roll is developed by the service, we the Politicians are frustrated, yesterday somebody talked about stress, anytime I see the Accountant General, it stresses me, even when he was talking he was stressing me because I didn’t understand what he was saying, people are retiring, they are migrating to pension platforms but my salaries, the portfolio is increasing, and we are not employing and nobody will come and give me any explanation as to what is happening”, the Governor said.

The governor added that “yesterday Dr Ishaku spoke very well and this is a challenge to our civil service and to our political appointees, all of us, the new Commissioners are here, you are to drive the nominal roll, we have to get tangible and measurable savings from the salary portfolio otherwise we cannot get money to employ”.

Governor Mohammed said that the people have been hinted that over ten thousand of them would be employed, lamented that service no longer have the technical people, the engineers, the accountants as well as the administrative officers.

“They are all gone, even our extension workers are not there, how do we progress, our education system is producing graduates and we are not absorbing them, our system is very poor and yet we sit here and delude and deceive ourselves, paying six to seven billion Naira monthly while not employing”, the governor decried.

According to him, “some people are earning what they don’t work for, period, and we cannot develop the data, so, it’s a challenge”.

Governor Bala who urged the need for a change of mindset towards public service regretted that people believe they will sit down in their offices and get double salary.

“We have to change mindset, mindset of all of us. People believe that they will sit down in their offices and get double salary or in their local government and input people that will be collecting money or in our emirate councils or our local councils, we have to make the change because this is Haram, mind you, we are Muslims or christians, this is Haram money, that is why may be we are not progressing because we are all living on Haram, educating our children on Haram, living above our means”, Governor Bala Mohammed pointed out.

The Governor further said, “I have studied very well, our system is rotten, we try to eat what we cannot afford, somebody have spoken about education, how many of us are taking our children to government schools, even though they have teachers, they have everything, in some primary schools you don’t even have the teachers on reality checks but on paper you have so many of them, so we have to change”.

While stressing that the state primary health department agency has to work, the governor revealed that the over one thousand primary health centers have been built in partnership with development partners.

He however, observed that hospital rooms do not make a clinic without the human capital, adding that the state cannot employ because ghost workers have taken the job spaces.

“I am always frustrated, we want to employ, pre-service employment of Doctors, nurses and midwives, when we were growing, this is how it was done, seamless migration after graduation, at least you will get the trained nurse in a PHC, we don’t have them anymore, we have revolving fund that we established when we came but they have been encroached upon, equipments that we bought in the hospitals are been stolen and no body is doing anything, no penalty, our punishment and reward systems are not working”, the governor said.

He further noted: “I think that is the essence of coming here for us to sit down and talk to ourselves that we need to change”.