The All Progressives Congress in Oyo State has raised the alarm over the figures recently credited to Governor Seyi Makinde as a total monthly wage bill being paid to the state workforce.

The leading opposition political party in the state said the amount purportedly represent the state government’s monthly wage bill, and the staff population of N11bn and 115, 000 respectively, were bandied in attempts to cover up the brazen looting of the public treasury by the administration.

It was reported last week that the governor disclosed to participants at the Nigerian-American Business Forum in Tampa, Florida, United States that the state has 115,000 civil servants and a wage bill of N11bn per month, representing 1.4 percent of the state’s population.

In a statement in Ibadan by its Assistant Publicity Secretary, Prince Ayobami Adejumo, the Oyo APC lamented what it called apparent lack of direction.

According to the statement, the PDP-led government in the state has done more harm than good to the people of the state in the last nine months.

It stated, “We had waited patiently for Governor Makinde to make a U-turn and blame his handlers for an improper briefing on this particular matter like he has always been doing since his assumption of office last year May.

“But it is apparent that the governor was on a mission to sell a dummy to do a cover-up on the palpable diversion of monies from the state government coffers into some private accounts.

“He went as far as the United States to make a disclosure of 115, 000 workforce and N11bn wage bill which he claimed to have been paying since June 2019 even when he had never mentioned this to anyone at home.

“To set the record straight, the statistics obtainable as at May 2019 is as followed: Core civil servants -10,789; TESCOM staff (teaching/non-teaching) -17,615; local government staff -12, 264; SUBEB Staff -23, 352; parastatals -2,266; NYSC corps members serving in the state, -3,403; state government pensioners -16,539, and a total wage bill of N5.2bn, including payments to all political office holders and subventions to state-owned tertiary institutions.

“It is worthy of note that monthly payments to local government council staff (12, 264); public primary school employees (23, 352) and local government pensioners (8,805) are being made directly from federal allocations to the 33 Local Government Areas.

“When did the state government commence the payment of its compressed new minimum wage to workers in the state and, is this responsible for the over N5.8bn increase in wage bill?”

Attempts to get reactions from the state government as of the time of filing this report was abortive as calls made to some officials of the state were unsuccessful.

Messages sent to their telephone lines were also not replied.

Source:- Punchng