Recurrent budget: NLC, others reject Okonjo-Iweala’s defence

Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Nigerian Labour Congress, the Trade Union Congress and the Nigeria Union of Teachers have rejected the linking by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, of the high recurrent expenditure in the 2014 budget to the increase in workers’ salaries.

The minister during a public presentation of the 2014 budget on Monday in Abuja had claimed that the salary increase granted to various labour groups in 2009, had doubled the Federal Government’s wage bill from N857bn in that year to N1.72tn in 2013.

This, she said, had reduced the size of funds available for investments in capital projects.

In a statement issued on Thursday and signed by Comrade Bobboi Kaigama and Musa Lawal the President and Secretary General respectively, TUC faulted the claims by Okonjo-Iweala and Director-General of the Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu, that the civil service consumes 37 per cent of the recurrent expenditure.

Describing the claim as “overly speculative,” the union challenged the duo to “publish the salaries and other emoluments of all civil servants, giving details of what each Ministry, Department and Agency spends as remuneration each month.

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In separate interviews, the NLC Secretary General, Chris Uyot and the NUT President, Michael Olukoya, asked the executives and the National Assembly to reduce the numerous aides in their employ and to cut down on their salaries and allowances instead of blaming underpaid workers.

Uyot said, “We appreciate the dilemma of the minister having to prepare the budget within the dwindling revenue from oil due to oil theft and diversion of funds by public office holders. We really appreciate her problems.

“We also believe strongly that more focus should be on high-profile salaries that public office holders are receiving including members of the National Assembly. We believe strongly what is being paid workers is a pittance. It is very wrong for any official of government to put the blame on workers’ salaries.”

Uyot said the NLC might be forced to demand a living wage for workers