Senate frowns at FG employment embargo

Senate took a swipe at the Federal Government over embargo placed on employment, but it at the of the day, increases recurrent expenditure yearly. Senate’ s anger against the embargo on employment and yearly increase in recurrent expenditure component of budget came up yesterday during  submissions made by the Chairman of National Salaries , Income and Wages Commission ( NSIWC), Mr Ekpo Nta before the Senate Committee on Establishment. Meanwhile,  former Senate Leader, Senator  Ali Ndume,  has raised the alarm that time bomb awaits Nigeria if the increasing unemployment  rate in the country  was not addressed, just as he threatened to leave the country if relevant authorities refuse to put things in order by diffusing the ticking time bomb.

Senators were infuriated  when Nta failed  to tell the committee the total  amount of salaries and wages  federal government pays its workforce yearly, even as they  wondered why recurrent expenditure in yearly budget is not decreasing on account of embargo placed on employment and retirements at the various agencies. Specifically, Senator Ndume who is the Chairman,  Senate Committee  on  Army in taking up the NSIWC  Boss, said he was supposed to know the total wage bill of the Federal government workers in arresting the dangerous trend of increases  in yearly recurrent expenditure component of the budget without new recruitments  and even with retirement of workers on yearly basis. Ndume said, “Honestly speaking , time bomb is ticking out there with this policy because of the doors shut out against millions of youths seeking for employment through the embargo,

“Making it worrisome is the fact that  despite the policy , since 2018 till now , recurrent expenditure components of yearly budget have been increasing. In 2018 , it was N3.5trillion , N4trillion in 2019, N4.5trillion in 2020, N5.6trillion 2021 and N6.83trillion in the projected N16.39trillion 2022 budget. It is bad for recurrent expenditure to be increasing on yearly basis without increase in the number of workforce through required recruitments. The embargo is turning to a time bomb that can explode at anytime as witnessed in some countries in recent past. Personally , I’m already thinking of where to run to if the avoidable crisis is not averted . I visited Ghana and Niger recently  in this regard,” Other members of the committee like Suleiman Kwari, Nicholas Tofowomo and the Chairman of the committee, Ibrahim Shekarau agreed with Ndume’s position.

At the end of the day, the  Chairman of the Committee , directed the Salaries and Wages Commission Chairman to laiase with the Accountant General of 

the federation and other management  officials of IPPIS , for required harmonisation in arriving at total amount of salaries / wages federal government pays per annum. Earlier in his presentation,  the NSIWC boss who lamented that his agency recruited last in 2008 and that the planned extension of year of service and retirement age for primary and secondary schools teachers will further shut the door against fresh graduates, said, “the policy seems good but what happened to young graduates with teaching qualification.”