No fewer than 70,000 civil servants in 30 Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government have yet to receive their three months' salaries.
The Secretary-General of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, Mr. Alade Lawal, made this known just as investigations by The PUNCH revealed that states like Osun, Oyo, Benue and Plateau are owing their workers between three and four months' salaries.
Prominent among the ministries listed by Lawal during an interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Monday are Education, Works, Labour and Productivity, Mines and Power.
He said, "About eight MDAs have been owing workers their salaries from October. The number rose to 11 in November and in December, hit 30, including departments and agencies."
Asked what was responsible for the increase in the number of MDAs indebted to their workers, Lawal said some government officials involved in salary payments were engaged in a game of deceit.
He said, "They are telling us that some of the MDAs are involved in expenditure items different from salaries. They said they were spending on items not related to salaries. But that is not supposed to be the fault of the workers.
"There should be synergy in government whereby they have to work in tandem with the Budget Office and Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. They know what they are doing, they are muddling up the whole exercise and suffering workers unnecessarily."
He said the government had no tangible reason for not paying the workers, having promised to do so before December 24.
"As of December 22, they promised us that before Wednesday, December 24, these payments would be made. But as I am talking to you now, affected workers have not been paid.
"The Ministry of Works alone has about 26,000 workers. If you add them together, they can't be less than 70,000 workers that are affected.
"We have been liaising with our people. But you know, this is a festive period and it has affected some of the trade union actions we intended taking. The promise that they made last week which they also told the press that they would pay before Christmas, we thought they were serious about it. But latest developments indicate that they are deceiving us."
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had in a statement by her Special Adviser on Communication, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, on December 22 promised that the salary arrears of civil servants in MDAs would be paid before Christmas.
The PUNCH gathered on Monday that civil servants in states like Osun, Oyo, Benue, Plateau and Abia had a bleak Christmas as they are being owed between two and four-month salaries.
In Osun State for instance, the Chairman of state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Saka Adesiyan, told one of our correspondents in Osogbo that workers were being owed October, November and December salaries.
The Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Mr. Boye Abolarin, also confirmed that secondary school teachers were being owed October, November and December salaries.
Abolarin said that workers were subjected to hardship while politicians were feeding fat especially during the Yuletide.
Governor Rauf Aregbesola, however, blamed the development on the dwindling monthly allocations to the state.
Aregbesola, in a statement made available to our correspondent by his media aide, Semiu Okanlawon, said, "Either at the federal or at the state level, where is it that workers are being paid as and when due?
"We thought this situation will not last long. That was why we used our strategic reserve to augment salaries for one year. All our savings were spent on augmentation of salaries."
In Oyo, the state NLC Chairman, Basiru Alli, said that the November and December salaries of some workers were being awaited.
He said, "I will not say that government in the state is owing us, it is actually delaying payment of workers salaries. As of now, not all workers have been paid November salaries. Some are still waiting for theirs. We do not know when the December salary will come."
Asked what efforts the NLC was making to ensure all the workers got paid, Alli said that they were told by the government that dwindling allocations from the Federal Government were responsible.
"We hold consultations with the government from time to time and what we were told the last time was that it was not a deliberate attempt to delay the salaries but due to dwindling allocations, the state had to manage its resources."
But the Special Adviser to Governor Abiola Ajimobi on Media, Dr. Festus Adedayo, said that all workers had been paid November salaries.
He said, "The state government is passionate about staff welfare. We are handicapped by the dwindling allocations from the Federal Government. We have a wage bill of N4.9bn but the allocation we have this month was N2.9bn. Last month, the state got N3.1bn from the Federal Government. We are working hard to ensure workers are paid the December salaries."
The situation in Benue State is not better as the government is also currently owing three months' salaries.
Before the Yuletide, the government owed workers five months' salaries but it paid two months' salaries at different intervals.
A civil servant, who pleaded anonymity told The PUNCH that a day to Christmas, some of his colleagues received alert for one month salary while on Monday, others received alert for their second salary payment.
The civil servant explained that they could not enjoy the Yuletide due to the debts they had incurred.
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