Instead of reducing salaries and sacking workers, Fayose admonished state governors to reduce the affluence they enjoy in office and put an end to wastages.
The governor, according to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, spoke during the Agenda for the Treasury Board meeting held as part of preparation for the 2016 Budget.
According to Punch, He said, “Today, most newspapers carried the story about the call by some state governors that the minimum wage of N18,000 be reduced or that there should be massive retrenchment of workers in the public service. They are on their own and I take exception to that. The minimum wage is even not enough.
“Reduction of wages or retrenchment of workers won’t happen in Ekiti State. Instead of those anti-labour and anti-people policies, the governors should cut down on their travels and tours and cut down on their minimum wives children and affluence. Let the governors cut their coats according to their sizes.
“Why are they changing the goal post when the match has started? It is an APC agenda; they are in the majority. When they were campaigning, there were indices of the looming economic challenges then, why did they not use that to campaign and see if people would vote for them?”
Despite the low allocations coming to the state, the governor said, “I won’t do that (sack).
“They (APC) should have told Nigerians then that the economy was bad and that they would sack workers and reduce their salaries while campaigning and see if they would win. They cannot just change the rules midway.
“If you sack somebody, it is like cutting down a tree. The person sacked has dependants and himself to cater for. If the government is owing, it is better. It will be on record that the government is owing and when the economy improves, we can then pay the workers rather than sacking them and sending them into the labour market. It is not my agenda to sack workers. Despite the low allocations coming to Ekiti State, I won’t do that,” he said.
Meanwhile, some teachers in Ekiti have asked Governor Ayodele Fayose to probe the office of the Accountant General for alleged deduction of extra N44m from their monthly salaries to service loans they borrowed from a bank.
In a petition dated December 2, 2015 and signed by their lawyer, Barrister A.O. Adebayo, they alleged that a first generation bank had continued to ‘continually and illegally’ deduct from their salaries a loan they had completed repayment since November, 2014.
In the petition titled, “Refusal to stop illegal deductions from the monthly salaries of some employees of the Teaching Service Commission, Ekiti State,” the teachers lamented that the deductions had been affecting their welfare and subjecting their families to unwarranted suffering.
They threatened to send a copy of their petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, if nothing substantially was done to halt the deductions as soon as possible.
The petition explained that the teachers brokered a loan deal in 2011 with a cooperative society, which facilitated a loan from the bank while the Teaching Service Commission was approached to make unbroken repayment through deductions from their monthly salaries.
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