Salary payment statutory responsibility of govt – AD chieftain tackles Gov Makinde

By Christiana Ekpa

A chieftain of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in Oyo State, Engineer Oyedele Hakeem Alao, on Sunday, declared that payment of salaries to workers is not an achievement any Governor should be celebrating.
Alao, who contested in the gubernatorial election on the platform of AD in 2019, said that Governor Seyi Makinde of the State was not rendering any assistance to workers in the State when he announced that he has been paying salaries of workers since his assumption of office.
Recall that the State Governor had said that he is fulfilling one of the promises made to workers by paying their salaries as at when due.
But, Alao in a statement made available to journalists through his Media Aide, Omotayo Iyanda, insisted that the Governor should be reminded that salary payment is a statutory responsibility of any employer of labour.
Alao added that what was scary was the fact that the salaries were being paid with bank facilities tied to the federal government monthly allocation, adding that practically, Oyo monthly allocation was being used to pay salaries alone.
Alao, who added that Makinde’s administration had been characterized with improprieties, burdens of loans, insincerity of purpose, inconsistency, pretence, policy reversal, called on Makinde to retrospect and start better in 2021.
He said, “Let the Governor be reminded that salary payment is a statutory responsibility and he is not rendering any favour to the Oyo State workforce.
“But what is scary is the fact that the salaries are being paid with bank facilities tied to the federal government monthly allocation of Oyo State. Practically, what that means is that the Oyo monthly allocation is being used to pay salaries alone by the time you do the calculation.
“A call has gone to Engineer Seyi Makinde to start his administration on a better slate from 2021 because his administration so far has been characterized by a lot of improprieties, burdens of loans, insincerity of purpose, inconsistency, pretence, policy reversal and attempt at siphoning the Oyo State money.”
Alao noted that Makinde had failed to fulfil the promise of generating revenues locally to run the State government.
“The administration of Governor Seyi Makinde, from critical observation and findings, has been characterized by a lot of improprieties, burdens of loans, insincerity of purpose, inconsistency, pretence, policy reversal and attempt at siphoning the Oyo State money. To start with, during the 2019 electioneering campaigns, Engr Seyi Makinde promised the people of Oyo State that when elected his administration would be run with revenues generated out of his administration’s ingenuity to fund developmental projects in the state”, he stated.