Oyo cuts salaries of political office holders to 50%

The government of Oyo State on Monday announced the reduction in salaries of political office holders in the state to 50 per cent with immediate effect.

The government also said that the 50 per cent cut will include their compensation, approval limits and government’s spending.

This development was made known to newsmen by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Olalekan Alli during a news conference in Ibadan on Monday.

He said that the decision was arrived at during the State Executive Council meeting held on Friday, November 4.

“The resources of government in the state dwindled as a result of the economic downturn. In July, the state’s monthly allocation was N4bn, N3.8bn in Aug., and N3.5billion in September and N2.8 billion in October. Considering the dwindling allocation, the best is for state governments to look inward. This is why we are slashing the salaries of all political office holders,” Alli said.

Disclosing that the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state was still between N1bn to N1.5bn, Alli said that the state government adopted the restructuring and verification exercise in the state as a means of blocking the several loopholes that allowed for waste of resources.
According to him, the ongoing Biometric Verification Number exercise in the state had revealed some ghost workers drawing multiple salaries.