More than 20 local government areas in Delta State have not received salaries in the last eight to 10 months and are reportedly starving. Investigation by Vanguard showed that many of the affected workers have absconded from their post, complaining that they do not want to collapse in their offices because of hunger.
Chairman of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, Delta State chapter, Mr. Malik Ikpokpo, confirmed that councils in the state were in dire need because of the downturn in the economy. Ikpokpo, who is the chairman of Isoko South Local Government Area, said: “I can confirm to you that in my council, workers have not been paid in the past 10 months and it is very disturbing to me.
“The council is practically getting zero allocation every month after the obligatory deduction of N130 million for payment of salaries of primary school teachers, two per cent allocation for agriculture, royal fathers’ stipends and other deductions. “You can imagine where there is no money to pay salary of workers, how do we get money to carry out projects? I want to improve the primary health care in my area and repair some bad roads, so many thing, but where is the money?” He said that until lately, only three or four of the 25 councils in the state were able to pay workers from their allocations, but the tide had changed in the past two to three months, as they could no longer pay and the respective councils are currently carrying out biometric exercise. “It has been fluctuating around N10 million, N20 million and N30 million depending on the month for some time now, but we require N60 million to pay council workers and we cannot pay because our internally generated revenue is just about N1.5 million monthly,” he said.
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