The Kwara State Government has dismissed as false and unfounded an online report linking the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki with the salary crises in state-owned Colleges of Education.
In the statement issued in Ilorin, the Kwara State Government dissociated the Senate President from the salary arrears at the affected institutions, and restated that Saraki neither controls nor interferes with the management of state government funds or institutions. The government therefore challenged anyone with contrary proof to publish it.
The State Government blamed its inability to pay subventions to the affected tertiary institutions on the drop in monthly federal allocations to the state from N3.2b to N1.8b.
Explaining further, the statement added that N1.7b of the amount goes towards the payment of secondary school teachers, civil servants, pensions and gratuity per month, stressing that the remainder is inadequate to cover the N500m monthly subventions to parastatals, including revenue-generating tertiary institutions.
According to the statement signed by Dr. Muyideen Akorede, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications to the State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, the government was therefore forced to suspend the payment of subventions to parastatals while expecting tertiary institutions and other revenue-generating agencies to pay workers from their internally-generated revenue in view of the huge drop in monthly federal allocation to the state.
On the N4.3b Federal Government bail out to the state, the statement emphasised that the money was used to clear the two months’ arrears owed to state civil servants in August 2015. It added that the Federal Government was yet to release the bail out component for the payment of subvention to the tertiary institutions and other parastatals in the state.
The state government also denied cutting salaries at the Colleges of Education by 30 per cent. It clarified that the state government was financially-constrained to implement only 70 per cent of the Consolidated Tertiary Education and Institution Salary Structure, a nationally-agreed salary structure for tertiary institutions which is however subject to states’ capacity to pay.
The statement added that despite its lean finances, the government had increased subventions to tertiary institutions in the state thrice in the last four years but was currently unable to ensure regular payment due to the huge drop in monthly federal allocation to the state.
The government therefore advised people to stop playing politics with issues affecting the lives of people and the security of the state, stressing that making false claims that are capable of inciting people and creating crises is not only unpatriotic but unGodly.