Democracy: When Dividends Are In Short Supply -By Hon. Ahmed Yerima

Hon. Ahmed Yerima

The federal allocation for this month has been the largest over the last 13 months with Bauchi State recieving over 8 billion naira for the state and local governments. With an aggregate allocation of about 100billion naira in the past 13 months and an average wage bill of 3billion monthly, when you multiply that by 13 you get 39 billion. In a Radio Nigeria report monitored  on July 26, 2016, the Bauchi State governor stated that he used about 8.6billion naira bailout funds to pay salaries and pensions. When you subtract 39billion naire from the total allocation received and nobody can account for the balance, either in physical or social infrastructure, then something is definitely wrong.

Previous PDP administrations in the state had at one time appointed over 4,000 political appointees, with a wage bill of about 2.4 billion. Today the APC government in the state has less than 200 of such political appointees. Despite all the promises the governor made he cannot justify the 4billion naira he borrowed. The previous administration as I stated earlier, left only one month salaries and pensions backlog in May of last year, which was collected by this administration in June of last year.

Now running around to get paid for federal projects executed by the previous administration is definitely not the way to go, especially, when there is no transparency and accountability for already collected funds. It is also common knowledge that salaries, pensions and government operational funds for hospitals, schools, water and other basic needs were never denied, but this government is exploiting the average Bauchi citizen to manipulate figures and expenditure and making false claims.

Bauchi State is always in the media for all the wrong reasons: unpaid salaries and pensions, etc.  Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.  Every man is guilty of all the good that he did not do – Voltaire. Al Smith stated that; “All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy”, and William Ewart Gladstone; ‘‘All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes’’. Allowing the governor to run the affairs of the state with impunity makes the past administration better than what we have today.

I challenge all the top civil servants in Bauchi State who steer the affairs of the state to use their voices of reason to call him to order. How can a state government account for the resurfacing of roads at the cost of 500million naira per kilometer and cannot be completed in one year. We the APC claim to be an upright corrupt-free party, how will the people of Bauchi look at our claim and what is on ground and view us with any modicum of respect?

 — Hon. Yerima is member, representing Misau/Dambam federal constituency.