TheCable

The Oyo state government has slashed the salaries of political office holders by 50 percent.

Olalekan Alli, secretary to the state government (SSG), who disclosed this, said compensation, approval limits and government’s spending were aso affected by the new development, which he described as a measure to shore up the dwindling revenue base of the state.

He said the state had been spending its monthly allocation from the federation account on payment of workers’ salary, which he said, stood at N5.2 billion.

Alli said government had not reneged on its subsisting agreement with the labour unions to pay them 100 percent of the monthly federal allocation to the state.

“The resources of government in the state dwindled as a result of the economic downturn,” he said.

“In July, the state’s monthly allocation was N4billion, N3.8 billion in August, N3.5 billion in September and N2.8 billion in October.

“Considering the dwindling allocation, the best is for state governments to look inward. This is why we are slashing the salaries of all political office holders.”

He said the internally generated revenue (IGR) of the state was still between N1 billion to N1.5 billion.

Alli said that the state government had employed the restructuring and verification exercise in the state as a means of blocking the several loopholes that allowed for waste of resources.

He said that the ongoing Biometric Verification Number (BVN) exercise in the state had revealed some ghost workers drawing multiple salaries.

“We have discovered 500 people who did not come for the verification exercise to unravel their true identity,’’ he said.