Civil Servants: WHAT WILL BE OUR SALARY POLICY? - Dr Akin Ogunbiyi

It is convenient to say we will pay full salaries, but what will be the guiding principles of our salary management?

Again, let us look at three fundamental principles.

1. Every Civil Servant will be treated as deserving of their salaries. I totally disagree with the approach of the present government to staff remuneration. Every Civil Servant, at the end of every 30-day month deserves his/her salary. We will not make workers feel like beggars when they actually work for what they earn.

2. No Civil servant will be forced to make any more sacrifice than their personal comfort can handle. The government of today claims workers' salaries are being modulated so that government can have money to complete important projects. But, workers are languishing in lack and poverty. They are being forced to make sacrifices that obliterate their comfort. We will not do this.

3. We will not be modulating salaries with reckless abandon as it obtains today. We will not push our hardworking civil servants into penury because we chose to modulate a salary that should even be on the negotiation table for upward review. We will not modulate salaries and force workers into poverty.

Instead of overburdening our workers, we will seek innovative ways of raising the State's profitability so that we can meet our obligations to workers and to the people.

So help us God.