Taraba moves to resolve outstanding salary issues,
compiles list of teachers.
As a way of resolving all the salaries logjams, the
Taraba state government has recently completed
an exercise that saw it compiling an exhaustive list
of all the primary school teachers in its services.
This is with the aim of ascertaining genuine
claimants. Salaries too have improved with the
outstanding ones being what was carried over from
the past. Yet, Governor Darius Ishaku is said to
have swing into action to resolve all the
challenges.


Making this known, the Senior Special Assistant to
the governor on Public Affairs, Emmanuel Bello,
said the current exercise is by far the "most
effective measure taken to thoroughly address the
issues of primary school teachers salaries with the
aim of ensuring no authentic worker is
shortchanged. We hold teachers in the highest
esteem and would not sit and watch the moulders
of our children's life suffer, but we also have to
practically clean out the proverbial Augean Stable."
Bello noted that it would also be pertinent to
properly situate the state's salaries challenges. He
said, " we have to be clear that , first and
foremost, the governor doesn't play with the issue
of salaries as he, more than anyone, is aware of
the centrality of this in the lives of the people. His
team too is aware of this and we are deeply
concerned. To paint a picture as if we don't care is
unfair and wrong. The governor worries more than
anyone and is working hard to tackle this
challenge. Basically, the state doesn't owe state
workers. Most of the complaints are from the local
governments which are, in principle, not in the
purview of the state. But the state government has
waded in because these are our citizens going
through pains. We have to be clear about that. We
are among some of the top states paying as and
when due as far as civil servants at the state level
are concerned. There are states owing state's civil
servants. Thankfully that is not the case here."
Bello stressed that even with that, the state
government is aware of the myraid of complains
about non payment, especially at the local
government level. While apologising and soliciting
for understanding, Bello said, "we are really in
pains when we hear these complains. So we are
looking into the matters closely. Most of these
problems emanated from government's genuine
move to rid the pay roll of frauds occasioned by
the ghost workers phenomenon. With a biting
recession, government couldnt have allowed some
of the illegalities perpetrated by pay clerks to
continue. There was a cartel selling employement
letters and what not. The salary wage bill was
getting over bloated in spite of resignations or
sadly, deaths. Clearly, there was a fundamental
problem. And when you know the money from the
federation purse has dropped, you would agree
there was a need to stop the hemorrhage. There
was a need for biometrics to determine real
workers. The verification exercise, in some cases,
led to a situation where some real workers were
left uncaptured. This could be because of names
variations and other details in data capture
exercise. These are solvable problems. And we are
addressing them everyday. As for primary school
teachers, we have gone round the entire state with
the grassroot teams in each wards where we made
a comprehensive list of teachers in all the schools
in the state. As we speak we have a
comprehensive list and yes, some genuine teachers
are being owed, no doubt. But the exercise has
also put everything in perspectives for us and we
would soon address everything."
Bello said that the local governments are having
issues with funds to properly address the issues of
salaries, noting that the state is often coming to
their aid. He said, "principally, local governments
are often not able to meet their obligations. The
state has to wade in. But I can authoritatively
assure us that we are going to solve all the
problems."