As the August 9 Osun State
governorship election draws near , it is
believed that stakeholders in the state
have resolved on which political party
out of twenty parties expected to field
candidates for the election to cast their
votes for .
Stakeholders in the state including
students , public servants , pensioners ,
artisans , religious leaders, market men
and women , teachers , groups and
associations just to mention a few also
appear to be directly or indirectly
campaigning and canvassing for votes
for the political of their choice from their
relations , friends , co - workers ,
neighbours and family members.
Going by the General Order ( GO ) guiding
politicking , some of these stakeholders
are people who ideally are supposed to
be seen and not heard when it come to
the issue of electioneering campaigns.
However , political watchers in the state
have noticed that public workers
including teachers and pensioners have
engaged in open campaign to influence
people on the pattern of voting .
The workers and their retired colleagues
have consequently constituted
themselves into pressure groups openly
canvassing for votes for a particular
party against the other.
Some of them claimed that the welfare
programme of the incumbent ruling party
in the state , the All Progressives
Congress ( APC) , is unacceptable to
them especially in the area of the
payment of salaries and allowances of
workers . Some of them also claimed
that they foresee a situation where the
APC would after securing a second term
may resort to sacking workers .
However , the APC- led government has
assured that it does not plan to retrench
workers or trim its workforce. The state
government said it will not sack nor do
anything to trample on the welfare of
workers .
Investigations by Daily Independent
reveal that the current administration is
giving the issue of welfare of workers in
the state high priority. For instance, on
assumption of office before the delay in
the release of statutory allocation from
federation account set in, workers in the
state were paid latest by 26 th or 27 th of
every month.
The incumbent administration is the first
government since the creation of the
state 23 years ago to pay workers in the
state 13 th month salary as bonus.
It will be recalled that barely a month
after assuming the mantle of leadership
of the state on November 27 , 2010 the
administration of Rauf Aregbesola paid
workers in the state 10 % of their basic
salary as bonus to boost their morale . In
December 2011 , the bonus was jerked
up to 25 %, 50 % in 2012 and 100 % in
2013 respectively .
This is aside other benefits the public
workers enjoyed in the state . The
current administration also involved the
workers in the selection of who becomes
the number one civil servant in the state
by introducing voting in the selection.
Under the new arrangement , civil
servants on the grade level 12 and
above participated in the election that
brought the current Head of Service , Mr.
Yinka Owoeye into office.
It was further gathered that the State
Government also introduced other
incentives to motivate public workers .
For instance, “Workers ’ Smart Card ”,
which serves as identity card having all
their biometric information of workers ,
was introduced . The card could also be
used to collect salary advancement or
borrow money up to 20 % of their salary
before their salaries are paid at the end
of the month.
It however appears that some workers
are not happy with the current
administration ’s financial re - engineering
which blocked all loop holes that had
been previously exploited by workers to
short - change the government .
Now , all monies to be paid must first of
all go into the coffers of the state
government through payment in the
bank and this financial re - engineering
was said to have helped the government
to save lot of money that normally pay
to ghost workers and it help in
enhancing IGR from N 300 million to over
N 1 . 6 billion.
Although the financial re - engineering
enhanced the State ’s Internally
Generated Revenue ( IGR ) and also
augmented the statutory allocation from
the federation account , some civil
servants have begun what could be
described as “campaign of calumny”
against the state government .
There are one or two cases to buttress
this claim. In 2011 , when the state
government decided to pay the WAEC
fees of the Senior Secondary School
( SSS) students, the figure of the pupils
was allegedly inflated by the Ministry of
Education which cost the state
government huge loss of money . But
attempt to repeat the same feat in 2012
was blocked by the state government.
In 2012 , when the same commitment
was to be made , officials of the Ministry
of Education put the number of the
( SSS) students at 47 , 000 pupils.
However , after the finance Ministry paid
the examination fees for 47 , 000 pupils
directly to WAEC with instruction that the
examination body should return the
excess at the end of registration, it was
discovered that about 9 , 000 ghost
pupils were added to the students’
population . This would have cost the
government N 5000 per each student
added to the list .
Again , when the state government
announced its decision to give pupils in
all public primary and secondary
schools in the state free uniforms , a bill
for 750 , 000 pupils was given to the state
government by the same Ministry of
Education . However, at the end of
exercise , it was discovered that the
actual figure of pupils in public schools
is under 600 , 000 . This became open
because the state government paid
directly to the company that produced
the uniform and the excess was return to
the coffers of the state government .
These two cases are enough reason to
understand why some civil servants
allegedly embark on campaign against
particular political party in preference for
another . Though , some of them were
said to appreciate the current
government on the on - going
transformation programme in the state .
For the pensioners , it was gathered that
their grouse has more to do with the
perceived delay in the payment of their
pension , gratuity and others .
Available data suggests that Osun State
happens to be one of the states in the
federation with high number of retired
workers .
The State Commissioner for Finance ,
Budget and Economic Planning, Dr . Wale
Bolorunduro however lamented that
shortfall in the state ’s monthly allocation
from the federation account to cope with
the financial commitment of the state
saying Osun revenue suffered serious
decline since June 2013 . The shortfall in
the state ’ s monthly allocations is
currently over 44 %.
He said , “for instance, while the state
received N 4 . 83 billion ( after mandatory
deductions ) in May 2013 , only the net
sum of N2 . 69 billion was received in
January 2013 . This is at a time when
the state ’ s salaries and pension bill has
already increased to N3 . 69 billion.
According to him , the state inherited
142 % pension arrears liabilities from the
immediate past administration . At the
inception of the current administration,
the state ’ s liability on the 145 % pension
arrears was about N4 billion. To date ,
our administration has paid up to
N 1 . 2 billion from this .
“ For avoidance of doubts, over 5 , 000
employees of the state joined the
existing over 9 , 000 retirees in the state
while the local government retirees
schedule also increased by about
3 , 500 .”
While assuring that the retirees in the
state will continue to enjoy their monthly
emoluments in form of pension ,
Bolorunduro noted that the current
administration has consequently
increased pension obligation from
N 250 million in 2011 to N600 million
monthly now to be able to cope with the
surge .
He however appealed to state ’s workers
and retirees to bear with the state
government saying that the financial
challenges is not peculiar to Osun and
that the state will deploy its strategic
initiatives to cope with the cash crunch .
These and other factors that some
people considered as petty are reasons
why some public workers and the
retirees in the state have continue to
tackle the current administration in its
re - election bid .
One is not saying that workers and
retirees in the state does not have
electoral value or that they should not
have candidate of their choice in the
time of election , the fact still remain that
playing active politics and openly
canvassing for votes for a particular
candidate or political party is against
their rules and general order of the civil
service .
Even if you , as civil servants , have
preferred candidate , which is normal
under the law and constitution , such
preference must be exercise so strictly in
a manner that it will not cause injurious
to another candidate . Our freedom of
choice must not be exercise in a manner
it will cause disaffection within a
system .
Politicians are the same and civil
servants must watch it that they may
not become a punching bag after the
election . Canvassing for votes must be
left for politicians since everybody has
free will to exercise his or her
fundamental human rights and choice to
vote for party or candidate of his or her
choice .
Our choice supposed to be on merit and
performance if truly we all cherish
advancement and hate being ordinarily
refers to as civil service state whereas
some people are exploiting this
syndrome to amass ill- gotten wealth
and affluence while majority could not
find means of livelihood.


http://dailyindependentnig.com/2014/07/osun-polls-factors-may-swing-ballot/

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