Politics of half-salary payment of Adeleke

It is good that Governor Ademola Adeleke is offsetting the half-salary owed the senior level workers in the state (25% of the entire workforce) by the Rauf Aregbesola government. I commend him for that singular action. Unfortunately, the pace in which the payment is being made is not encouraging. The governor during last electioneering promised to clear the arrears in just 6 months of his administration. It is 33 months already and the government has not paid half of the entire money. 

Given the huge allocation accrued to the state, this money should have been cleared. Today, the state government receives monthly federal allocation of N11 billion. And the half-salary wage bill per month is just N350 million. How much is N350 million out of N11 billion federal allocation? It is chicken's  feed. It is peanuts. If the governor is truly concerned about the welfare of the workers, he should have paid it off. 

If the Oyetola government had received this kind of allocation in its time, the arrears would have been cleared off. Despite the lean allocation, the government managed to pay few months of the half-salary to local governments. 

During the Oyetola government, the monthly wage bill/recurrent expenditure was in the region of N6.5bn while the FAAC was on the average of N2billion. The government had to source for the shortfalls and deficit elsewhere. Despite that, the government did not owe salary and pension and yet scaled up infrastructure in the state. It also activated food support scheme and other welfare packages for the elderly and the needy which the current government has stopped. 

Adeleke has no excuse for not clearing the arrears since it covers only 25% of the workers. A serious and truly empathic governor should have cleared all the half-salary arrears given the prevailing allocation and wage bill. A governor who has spent almost N60 billion for his office alone in 33 months should not jubilate over payment of N350 million every 3 months. It is shameful.