Oyinlola: I Wanted to Slash Workers Salaries When I Was in Government

By Olabode Abolaji

The former governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola has said he wanted to slash workers salaries or retrench civil servants before he left government.

He said the step was to cushion the effects of the global economic meltdown which started since 2008.

Oyinlola was reacting to claims that the Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola is maltreating workers in the state which did not happen during his era.

He explained when the state finances had continued to drop, he was ready to downsize or slash salaries before the intervention of the top echelon of the state civil service.

His words “When we were there, we had #2bn coming from Abuja, we had #500m as our Internally Generated Revenue, We had #2.5b in total. #1.6bn was for the Salary, plus the pensions and the rest, we were using over 70 percent of our revenue to foot the wage bill.”

“So, I decided to call a state stakeholders meeting to see if we could slash salaries or retrench workers, and decided that the recommendations from that meeting should be taken to the state house of assembly for ratification.”

He continued “When the head of the civil service knew about our idea, he pleaded that we should not downsize or slash salaries but give them the opportunity to work towards increasing the state IGR which I agreed to before we left office.”

Prince Oyinlola said he did not plunge the state into any debt as mechanisms were in place to offset the #18bn credit facility obtained to finance the 2009 budget as backed by the state house of assembly.

“I did not have it in mind to put Osun in any debt before I left. It was in that time that the state assembly led by Adejare Bello with 15 PDP and 11 APC members argued that we should borrow to finance the capital projects in the budget. Before the court sacked me, I had spent #10bn out of the #18bn, paid #2.4bn out of the loan, and #7.6bn was left. I would have returned the money before my tenure expired in May 2011 but for the judgement.”

He concluded by saying “I borrowed to build UNIOSUN and I paid the debt in 11 months”.