Kano State Governor, Umar Abdullahi Ganduje has slashed March salaries of all political office holders in the State by 50 percent.
This move is coming barely 24 hours after the state dropped a hint that it was impossible to pay civil servants their full consolidated wages for the month of March due to what it attributed to the drop in federal allocation accruable to the State in March.
Among those affected by the pay-cut are the governor, deputy governor, all commissioners, special advisers, senior special assistant and special assistants.
Read Also: Kwankwaso To Ganduje: What Kano Need Is Education Not Flyovers
Others are chairmen, vice-chairmen, elected councillors, supervisory councillors, advisers and secretaries of local governments.
Muhammad Garba, the state’s Information Commissioner, while making the announcement said the pay cut was due to a shortfall in the revenue accruing to the state from the federation account.
The state chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has, however, given the government a seven-day ultimatum to refund and stop what it described as ‘illegal deduction‘ from civil servants.
NLC insisted that failure to do so would make workers embark on a three-day warning strike from midnight of April 7.
Kano State received a total allocation of N12.4bn from the federation account, out of which the state collected N6.1bn, while the 44 Local Governments collected N6.3bn.
It, however, insisted that it will have to source additional money to pay the consolidated wages to workers, which is currently not available.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK