El Rufai, Kaduna And This Matter Of Cost Of Governance!

TEMITOPE AJAYI

There is a news report that Kaduna State is disengaging about 4000 workers – mostly Local Government employees of the state. Already, Labour Unions are up in arms and a section of the Civil Society is making what I consider a very worn out argument. 
It is difficult to fault the position of the State Government and Governor El-Rufai. A State Government does not exist to just pay salary or use entire resources that belong to 9 million people to keep less than 100,000 workers happy. The State Govt says it spends 93% of its Federal Monthly Allocation of about N4.5billion to pay salaries from 2020 and that leaves nothing for any meaningful development for the rest of the population. 

Meanwhile, the same workers that consume almost the entire resources will still benefit from Govt investments in social services and infrastructure. The argument that the Government must reduce the cost of running government is somehow tenuous if you ask me. It is neither here nor there. I have never accepted that the cost of governance is the problem or a drag on Government performance because, in reality, there will always be a cost to running government and there is a limit to which it can be reduced such that there won’t be anything to reduce again except Government itself will cease to exist. 

I honestly think we overflog this issue of cost of governance and political appointees as guzzlers of Government revenues. The whole salary and allowances paid to Government workers are actually the real cost of running the bureaucracy and governance not what is paid to less than 300 appointees, at most, who are on a full time job in a given state. We should actually worry about a whole Civil Service that can’t generate enough internal revenue and expand economic activities in a state. 

Truth be told, most of these political appointees earn peanuts and what they earn can’t be a major pressure point on the finance of a Govt. Commissioners in most states earn below N500,000 per month. I know a few people who turned down appointments as Commissioners in their states because of the poor pay. In the majority of the 36 states, SSAs and Special Assistants do not earn N300,000 per month. Some political aides and appointees have left the job because of poor pay. Many on the job cannot leave because of personal commitment to their principals. 

We need to come to the realization that our Government at all levels has a serious revenue problem and in solving it, Labour Unions and public commentators must be less emotive. It is a fact that the Civil Service is too bogus in all the states. Local Governments across the country do not need 70% of the workers on their payroll. At some point, like El Rufai, Governors will have to take difficult decisions on payroll management.