No Plans To Slash Minimum Wage, Sack Workers – Abia

Forum 8 years ago

No Plans To Slash Minimum Wage, Sack Workers – Abia

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State has assured that he would not slash the N18,000 minimum wage for civil servants in the state.

This is as he denied rumour of plans to downsize the state’s workforce, saying that despite the adverse economic situation, Abia has not entered what he termed “relegation zone”.

According to the governor, though the federal allocation to the state in the last six months has been between N2.2 and N2.4 billion, which he said was “hardly sufficient for the overhead”, he has no intention to slash salary or sack workers.

Ikpeazu, therefore, urged the state’s civil servants to work hard and join hands with the government in the effort to raise the internally generated revenue, which he has set a target of N1.5 billion monthly.

The governor, who expressed these views while speaking to journalists in Umuahia, the state capital Tuesday, explained that it was only an improved IGR that will keep the state afloat and urged the civil servants to work hard to achieve the target.

“For now, we are not contemplating down-sizing the workforce. Times are hard but I don’t think Abia is on the relegation zone. But I will be tasking our workforce to work hard. It is only a problem if they are not working hard.

“In the days ahead, I will make them to work harder. If they help me to source for more revenue, we will not reduce minimum wage. We are also paying judiciary workers the new scale. We have managed to be prudent and I think we can do more.

“As long as I find resources, their salary will be first charge but I will not use money borrowed for infrastructure to pay salary”, he said.

Ikpeazu also stressed that government would drastically reduce wastage, noting that before now, a lot of government revenue was being diverted.