UDUAGHAN AND CBN GOVERNOR DISAGREE OVER GOVERNEMTS’ RECURRENT EXPENDITURE

The Central Bank Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and Delta State
Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan have disagreed sharply over how to
handle the issue of increasing recurrent expenditure at all levels of
government in Nigeria.
Both men who spoke in Warri (on  Tuesday) at the Second
Annual Capital Market Committee Retreat particularly disagreed over
whether workers should be retrenched in the public sector because of
the increasing recurrent expenditure.
Lamido had called on government at all levels to sack workers if they
are no longer able to carry the weight of paying workers salaries
based on complains that the money available for capital projects were
getting smaller.

But Uduaghan countered quickly stating that sacking of civil servants
was a bitter pill that would worsen the socio-economic problems in the
country.
Preparing the grounds for his position the Central Bank Governor said,
“seventy percent of our revenue is used to pay salaries of civil
servants at the Federal, State and Local Governments”.
He said this was unsustainable because funds must be set aside to
develop infrastructure and called for the scrapping of the Local
Government system in Nigeria.

Hear him: “Why should a State Government say he is unable to embark on
projects because the bulk of the money available to him is used for
workers salaries?” Continuing he declared, “My answer to the
Governor’s problem is simple, sack workers. Why employ people you
cannot pay their salaries”.
But to Governor Uduaghan the solution canvassed by the CBN helmsman
was a potential mine field and “a recipe for more trouble”.
Rising quickly to the occasion, Dr. Uduaghan asked participants at the
retreat to look beyond present problems by properly situating the
present position of things.
In his view, the problem of recurrent expenditure started when
companies in Nigeria started closing shops thus increasing the problem
of the unemployment market.

Uduaghan queried: “where would the graduates of the schools be
absorbed?” Continuing he said: “the scenario left government with the
only viable option, absorb job seekers”.
Explaining further, Delta State Governor cited the example in Delta
state where tri-cycles were recently introduced before the enforcement
of the ban on commercial motorcycles as a means of transportation from
some major cities of the State.
He told participants at the forum that government took a step to
provide the tricycles at subsidized rate to erstwhile commercial
motorcycle operators to achieve a seamless change and at the same time
ensure that the commercial motorcycle operators maintained their jobs.
According to Dr. Uduaghan, “before any rational government can embark
on retrenchment of workers it must plan for them by developing
infrastructure that will attract investors.”

Adding a political twist to the discourse, Governor Uduaghan said,
“sacking of workers would be an unpopular decision … If you advise us
to drop workers many governments will lose the next elections”.
Dr. Uduaghan who reeled out the effort of Government in strengthening
infrastructure asked investors to tap into the various opportunities
that abound in Delta State and help to create jobs.     GOVT. PRESS STATEMENT