By Shitile Mbayansa, Abuja
KOGI State Government workers and the organised Labour may continue to lament that the government is owing them between four and 21 months salaries but as far as the State’s Chief Executive, Yahaya Bello, is concerned, he is owing for just August and September 2017.
Bello, a regular at the Aso Rock Villa, told journalists there: “Those workers that are on strike are political civil servants. Real civil servants are coming to work. We are trying our best to keep up with the payment of salaries.
“There is no denying the fact that the economy is biting hard everywhere and you will recall that I met four months salary backlog. I cleared it and today we are keeping up to date. We are owing August and September as we speak.
“We are up to date in terms of salaries and those that come to work we shall pay them and those that don’t come to work, the no work no pay rule shall surely apply.
“The good people of Kogi state should continue to be patient with this government. Things are hard generally and we are trying our best and that is why we are transparent in everything that we do.
“Very soon we are going to publish all the salaries that we have paid to workers since inception in newspapers for people to see it. All the noise about Kogi is not paying salaries will be in public domain.
”On the scale of 1 to 10 we are 70 per cent, we are doing very well even though the challenges are still there.
“Security is not what you tackle once and for all, you have to continue to do your best. The criminals, kidnappers, armed robbers, hoodlums will always device various tactics, they may change styles, we have to change along with them and be ahead of them at any point in time in order to keep Kogi state secure.