Kaduna State governor, Nasir Ahmed el-Rufa’i, has said Kaduna State has started implementing its right-sizing policy by disengaging 99 political appointees, but is yet to disengage any State civil servant.
El-Rufa’i, who made the disclosure at a media chat on Thursday night, explained that the disengaged political appointees constitute 30% of political officeholders.
The governor disclosed that only agencies connected to the local government system have disengaged staff and these include the 23 local government councils, SUBEB and the Primary Health Care Board.
The governor, who spoke in Hausa, said that the rightsizing of civil servants will still go on as planned because of dwindling revenues that are accruing to the State government from the federation account.
El Rufa’i explained that the rightsizing commenced with political appointees because their details are clearly known, making it more straightforward to disengage them.
The governor said that his government has employed 11,000 more workers in the health sector, Kaduna State University as well as primary and secondary school teachers across the state.
The governor disclosed that it is a fallacy to allege that the salaries of political appointees account for the bloated personnel cost of the Kaduna State government.
Justifying the rightsizing of the public service, he said that all states and the federal government are affected by this shortfall of revenue and some states have even reverted to paying the old monthly minimum wage of N18,000.
The governor however promised that Kaduna state will not reverse the N30,000 minimum wage that it has started paying.
