[Mhiz Rebecca]

The Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers
(NUPENG), South-West Chairman, Mr Tokunbo Korodo, has
advised the Federal Government against the issuance of
bailout funds to state governments for the payment of
workers’ salaries.
Korodo, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency
of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Saturday.
The disbursement of bailout funds to the states was
necessitated by the prevailing economic challenges which
resulted in the non-payment of workers’ salaries by many
states across the federation.
The state governments received N713.7billion as bailout
funds from the federal government, to defray the backlog of
salaries.
Korodo urged the state governments with huge salary arrears
to look inwards and find new ways to generate revenue,
without waiting for monthly allocations from the federation
account.
He regretted that most state governments in the country had
too many aides that were a big drain on their resources and
advised them to downsize, to save costs.
“Governors from the 27 state governments that cannot pay
the monthly salaries of their workers should look inwards to
find new ways of making money to settle their wage bills.”He
said.
Korodu suggested the revival of agriculture is a credible
alternative to the current over-dependence of such states on
revenues from the federation account.
He also advised governors whose states are affected to beef
up their audit to block all existing leakages in revenue
generation in their states.