Governor Fayose Promises Not To Retrench Workers Despite Cash Crunch

The Governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, said his administration will not retrench workers in spite of the state’s current financial situation, .

Speaking in Ise-Ekiti, yesterday, Fayose said the administration would instead discuss with workers to find means of paying their salaries.

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.

“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.

Responding, 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.