It is true that Alhaji Yahaya Bello is set to take over the mantle of leadership as the sixth democratically elected governor of kogi state at a time when the state’s share of revenue accruable from the federation account is nose diving, the facts on ground reveals that the incoming administration will carry a load of huge expectations from all and sundry in the state who sees the victory of the APC at the last elections as one to usher in the much craved and desired change, bring succor and positive turn around to kogites at home and outside.
Considering the prevailing economic realities coupled with the urgent need to rescue our people from the shackles of poverty and hunger, the exigency of the moment demands that the incoming administration looks inward to sort for funds to better the lots of our people. Ours is a civil service state with over 75% of the working population being under the employment of the state and local government, this means that a lion share of the state’s resources is being channeled into payment of workers’ salaries, pension and gratuity, and other allowances. The honest truth is that no state can thrive or performs optimally when majority of its resource is used in paying salaries and allowances. Resources that should go into infrastructural development like, motorable roads, provision of portable drinking water, improve and establish hospitals to enhance health care delivery system, improve the condition of schools to aide better teaching and learning etc, which the people yearns earnestly.
Little wonder why successive administrations in the state were not able to keep a clean sheet in terms of payment of workers’ salaries, pension and allowances. This is because of the need to create equilibrium between human and infrastructural developmental needs of the populace; one has to suffer a setback for the other to be met. As it currently stands, the Internally Generated Revenue IGR of the state is nothing to write home about, I am an advocate of the fact that state has no business waiting for monthly allocations from the federation account before workers’ salaries are paid. As a matter of fact I fully support the proposition that any state whose IGR can’t pay salaries of its workforce should cease to exist as a state or rather be merged with another to make it more viable.
Available records and statistics shows that only Lagos and Kano states can conveniently pay its workers from their IGR with not having to wait on monthly federal allocations from Abuja. The need for Kogi State to put machinery in motion at speedily increasing the state’s IGR is a task which the incoming administration should embark on as a matter of priority. Moving Kogi State from its present status of a civil service state into an industrialized one that would ensure creation of ample job, for our teaming unemployed youth and curb the prevailing hunger, poverty and restiveness as promised by the APC during the gubernatorial campaigns can only come to fruitions through an improved IGR.
The fact that Lagos state has been able to boost its IGR base through effective collection and prompt remission of taxes into the state’s account is no longer news. Hence, the need for the new administration to borrow from the expertise of tax administrators and workers of its Lagos state counterpart. Training and retraining of staff of the Kogi state revenue service by either inviting experts from Lagos state to come and train ours or sponsoring staff to Lagos to be trained is highly indicated and needed at this moment if Kogi state is to benefit and learn from the “magic” of Lagos state as far of as taxes collection and remission of revenues are concerned.
The greatest asset of any state organization is its people i.e its human resources. Luckily, Kogi state is well blessed and endowed with a brilliant, agile, enterprising and a hardworking people which if effectively put to use and harnessed can turn the revenue base of the state around. The time for us to de-emphasize reliance on oil money from Abuja is now. God has already blessed the confluence state with abundant mineral resources which if prudently tapped has the capacity to replace crude oil and make Kogi one of the richest states in the federation.
Ghost-worker-syndrome which has being a conduit pipe through which the state’s meager resource is being milked by corrupt individuals should be carefully tackled through a well programmed and comprehensive staff audit or workers biometric registration. This will ensure that only people who are genuinely under the employment of government get paid and further blocked leakages. Previous administrations since creation of the state have treated the issue of pension and gratuity with levity, leaving our senior citizens who have served the state in their youth days to suffer unduly and languish in penury, the prevailing condition where some state pensioners still earns as meager as #5000 monthly should be looked into and reviewed upward as a matter of priority.
As the governor-elect takes an oath of office come 27th January, 2016 and hits the ground running as expected, what will be his greatest undoing which would eventually lead to his failure in office is if he surrounds himself or mingle too much with “people of yesterday” or political praise singers who specializes in sycophancy. Running an open-door and an all inclusive government that would ensure a cross fertilization of ideas is however needed if Yahaya Bello wants to succeed.
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Hussain Obaro…oseniobaro@yahoo.com…08065396694…lokoja-kogi state
