Following the Supreme court judgement upholding the election of governor Yahaya Bello about 700 workers have been penciled down across the 21 local government areas to be sacked
A source close to the local government commission says the lists consists of those earlier pardoned by the government during last controversial screening exercise
The source said the list which has caused panic among the workers has Dekina council with the highest number workers to be sacked which is put at 150 while Yagba East has 70 , kabba bunu 40 and Lokoja Council with 66 among staff to be laid off.
Although the reasons for the sack was not known as at the time of filing in this report,.but it may not be unconnected with the huge monthly wage bill which the state government has been consistently complained of.
It is gathered that the state workers received the highest salaries in the whole North Central States with the abnormal approval of the Relativity pay and that of minimum wage carried out by the then Ibrahim Idris administration.
The state is said to be paying a monthly wage bill of N2.6 to ₦3 billion and will often have to go and take overdraft from the banks before the salaries could be paid
It was gathered that not even the 80 percent in the state and 35 percent to local government workers being paid since April have had any significant impact on the finances of the state forcing them to look for more areas of further savings.
The source added that by time the retrenchment of the LG workers is successfully carried out that of the state civil service will commence to enable the government which has been accussed of non performance carry out some capital projects.
However, when our correspondent contacted the state commissioner for information and communication, Kingsley Fanwo,he denied that the state government is about to sack workers
“It is not true. I can confirm to you categorically that Government has no plan to retrench.
The Governor is committed to protecting the interest of the Kogi workers” he said.
