Outrage over N1.2trn pay for 18,000 govt officers

Nigerians have reacted angrily to yet another revelation by a Presidential Committee on the Reform of the Public Service that 18,000 Nigerians who belong to top echelon of the service get N1.26trn in salaries and allowances annually.
The N1.26 trn constitutes 22.9 per cent of the 2013 budget which is N4.9 trn.
All the prominent Nigerians who spoke on the issue in separate interviews with SUNDAY PUNCH were of the view that no country with a genuine desire to develop, would spend such an amount of money on a small number of people in a country whose annual budget is N4.9 trn.

The respondents were further angered that recommendations on similar shocking revelations by committees set up by the President had been ignored by the Federal Government.
They also said the disclosure by the committee headed by a former Head of Service of the Federation, Adamu Fika, was a confirmation that cost of governance in the country is high.
Fika while presenting the committee’s report to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Ayim Pius Ayim, had said the figure emanated from the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission for the affected officers with effect from July 2007.
A former Governor of Edo State, Mr. John Odigie-Oyegun, said it was a shocking that N1.26 trn was being spent annually on the salaries and allowances of only 18,000 people in a country of over 160 million people.
Oyegun said he had given up on the rot in the nation’s polity as the recommendations of several committees set to probe the public service had not been implemented.
He said, “For this is absolutely astonishing. So many people including the Governor of the CBN and several groups have commented on the waste of public funds. This must be the fifth in the last few years.”

PUNCH