Despite the financial challenges being experienced by the state government, Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has said his administration will not retrench workers in its employ.
The governor, who said this in Ise-Ekiti on Thursday, said the administration would instead discuss with workers to find means of paying their salaries.
This was contained in a statement by the governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi.
The governor, who started a sensitisation tour of local governments on the financial situation of the state, said sacking workers was not the solution to the problem.
Fayose, who also visited Emure Local Government, said allocations to both state and local governments had gone down drastically, and cited the case of what the 16 local governments had received in the last few months.
“A comparative analysis of the allocations to local governments in Ekiti between January to October 2014 and the same period this year would clearly explain what I am talking about.
“During that period in 2014, the local governments got over N22 billion, while they were given N15 billion for the same period this year, a shortfall of over N5 billion. What even came in last month was terrible. We therefore decided to pay primary school teachers in September and paid local government workers in October.
“Now, the issue is should we now skip a month and pay all workers at once or keep rotating the payment of salaries among different categories of workers? You are the ones to decide,” the governor said.
In his contributions, the Emure Local Government Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Mr Sunday Adu, said whatever their leaders at state level arrived at was acceptable to them.
He commended the governor for his efforts at encouraging teachers and giving their welfare serious priority.
Another contributor, Mr Ajayi Nathaniel, said the governor should look into the issue of those deployed to the classroom from local government by the Fayemi administration.
He said the differentials in their salaries were yet to be addressed.
The governor promised a quick resolution of the matter, adding that those screening them should complete that before the end of the month.
