The Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed on Monday told leadership of the organized labour in the state that his administration as a worker friendly government, will not relent in implementing various policies and programmes aimed at motivating civil servants and improving their standard of living for greater productivity and result oriented service.
The governor was speaking while addressing labour unions at the celebration of this year’s Workers Day held at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Memorial Stadium, Bauchi, where he said the state government has adopted the implementation of N30,000:00 consequential adjustment of National Minimum Wage, implementation and payment of the State Government’s statutory contributions on Employees Compensation Scheme (ECS).
He explained that the Employees Compensation Scheme was designed to provide compensation to employees who sustained or suffered from occupational diseases, injuries or disability at work or outside it as well as provides compensation to the next of kin of employee who dies in the course of his or her duty.
Governor Bala recalled that since the inception of his administration in May 2019, far reaching measures have been put in place to ensure stabilization of payment of salaries and pensions by making the nominal roll to drive the payroll so as to eliminate ‘the’ ghost workers syndrome, block leakages, improve cash flow management, cut irrelevant and unnecessary spending, among other fraudulent activities in the system.
The governor who was well represented at the occasion by the Head of Service, Yahuza Adamu Haruna, said his government was poised to supporting the state workers towards restoring the lost glory of the service and called for collective effort to ensure that the civil service in the state remains vibrant.
“I am delighted to be part of yet another major workers’ landmark, the annual celebration of the International Workers Day also known as \May Day’. The uniqueness of ‘May Day’ is underscored by the contributions of workers to the socio-economic development of our dear country in particular and the world at large. It is therefore a commendable decision by the International Labour Organization to set aside this very important day to celebrate workers’ contributions, in all areas of human endeavor.
“Today’s occasion provides an opportunity for both the public and private sectors to re-dedicate their services towards overcoming the various socio-economic challenges facing our great country. With the overcoming of the challenges, it is expected that there would be a paradigm shift from the old damaging order to that where accountability, transparency and probity would be the new order.
“In an effort to ameliorate the suffering of civil servants in accessing quality healthcare services, the state government has approved the take-off of the healthcare contributory scheme in the state formal/public sector.
“In addition, Government had set-up a machinery for the settlement of backlog of pension and gratuity with a view to minimizing the suffering of retired civil servants. Other measures included complete renovation of the Abubakar Umar Secretariat Complex and 20 Local Governments Areas Secretariats so as to create conducive working environment for workers.
“Due to the vacuum created in the civil service as a result of retirement, transfer, elevation, deployment, death etc, the state government has granted approval for employment of critical manpower needed to fill the existing vacancies in some MDAS. To this end, about 1,703 pre-service students were engaged by the state government especially in health sector so as to help in addressing the manpower requirement of the state both in the short and long run.
“Similarly, the State Government has facilitated the recruitment of over 2,500 state indigenes into Military and Para Military organizations. This has drastically reduced the number of unemployed youths in the state.”
The governor once again reiterated his irrevocable commitment to the upliftment of the standard of living of the people of the state through execution of meaningful projects and called on all civil servants to support and cooperate with the government at all levels in order to achieve their noble goals and objectives of providing dividends of democracy to citizenry.
In his speech earlier, Chairman of the NLC in the state, Comrade Dauda Shuaibu and his counterpart of the TUC, Comrade Sabi’u Ningi both applauded Governor Bala Mohammed for the waiver granted to Local Government Staff on promotion from 2018 to date and regular release and implementation of promotion for officers in the State Civil Service.
The labour leaders appreciated the governor for the implementation of New National Minimum Wage and consequential adjustment of salaries for officers on grade level 07 and above and assure of the labour union’s continuous unflinching support, loyalty, commitment and cooperation towards the progress and development of the state.
