El-Rufai sacks 99 political appointees

GOVERNOR of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai has approved the disengagement of 99 political appointees.

The governor revealed this at a media chat with journalists in Kaduna on Thursday night, explaining that the disengaged political appointees constitute 30% of political officeholders.

He said his government would reduce the size of civil servants in the state but maintained that government appointees will go first.

“So far, 99 political appointees have lost their jobs but we have not commenced rightsizing of civil servants,” he said.

We want to be fair to civil servants. We had earlier promised that before we reduce the size of the civil service, we will start with political appointees and we have done that.”

The governor who spoke in Hausa Language during the interview said that rightsizing of civil servants will still go on as planned because of dwindling revenues accruing to the state.

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.

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.

‘’Kaduna State cannot continue to use 84% to 96% of our revenues to pay salaries of less than 1% of the population. The rest of our people, all 99% of them, need better schools, hospitals, water supply, roads, markets and support for agriculture to make a living outside government,’’ he said.

The governor however promised that Kaduna state will not reverse the N30,000 minimum wage that it has started paying.