El-Rufai fires more workers, drops 99 appointees

Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State has continued to sack more workers in the state, this time, the governor fired 99 political appointees. He explained that the government has begun to implement its rightsizing policy by disengaging more workers.

Governor El-Rufai, however, disclosed that the state government has not yet disengaged any civil servant, pointing out that workers have only been disengaged in agencies connected to the local government system.

El-Rufai had on Thursday listed the agencies affected by the staff disengagement to include the 23 local government councils, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), and the Primary Health Care Board.

Governor El-Rufai said that the disengaged 99 political appointees constituted 30 per cent of the total number of political office holders in Kaduna State.

“So far, 99 political appointees have lost their jobs, but we have not commenced rightsizing civil servants.

“We want to be fair with regards to civil servants. We had earlier promised that before we reduce the size of the civil service, we will start with political appointees, and we have done that,” Governor El-Rufai had said.

El-Rufai maintained that the rightsizing of civil servants would still go on as planned because of dwindling revenues that were accruing to the state government from the federation account.

The governor said the rightsizing commenced with political appointees because their details were clearly known, making it more straightforward to disengage them.

Governor El-Rufai also said that civil servants with questionable veracity of data have been given the opportunity to clear the doubts before any action would be taken.

He said that the state government has employed 11,000 workers in the health sector, Kaduna State University, as well as primary and secondary school teachers across the state.

Governor El-Rufai insisted: “Kaduna State cannot continue to use 84 per to 96 per cent of our revenues to pay salaries of less than one per cent of the population.

“The rest of our people – all 99 per cent of them, need better schools, hospitals, water supply, roads, markets, and support for agriculture to make a living outside the government.”

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The governor assured that the N30,000 minimum wage which the state government has commenced paying would not be reversed.

El-Rufai, however, disputed the notion that the salaries of political appointees is responsible for the bloated personnel cost of the government.

He declared: “in March 2021, the salaries of these political appointees amounted to N259 million, while civil servants were paid N3.13 billion aside from costs related to state contributions to pension, accrued rights, and other personnel costs.

“So, it is false to insinuate that political appointees are the ones that guzzle most of the state’s resources.”