The Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, has decried state governments owing workers salaries running to several months , saying that it was not a good idea.
Ogunwusi told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) when some management staff paid him a courtesy visit in Ile Ife, Osun.
The monarch urged the affected state governments to think out of the box and pay their workers the outstanding salaries they owe them.
He said that state governments should not depend solely on monthly allocations from the federation accounts to run the affairs of their states.
“State governments should also think of what they can do on their own to generate additional revenues to complement whatever comes monthly to them from the federation account.
“All the states have one or two potential that they are blessed with it, they should utilize the opportunities to raise their income,” he said.
The monarch also advised the state governments to launch themselves into the agriculture sector.
They would be able to offset their workers’ salaries from revenue generated from their farm produce, he said.
“Every state has fertile lands that can be cultivated for farming, they should invest in areas of farming where they have comparative advantage to raise their internally generated revenues (IGR).
“ The only viable sectors left for us in these country are the agriculture and culture/tourism.
“These are the sectors that cannot run dry nor go into extinction because they are natural resources, ” he said.
He, therefore, urged state governments to invest more in agriculture to support the Federal Government’s change agenda.
According to him, agriculture will create employment opportunities for citizens, alleviate poverty, boost revenue and increase foreign exchange earnings.
He said that once all state governments could launch themselves into agriculture, they would harvest a lot farm produce to feed the citizenry.
“There will also be excess of produce which they can export to the foreign countries.
“By so doing, such state governments will realise huge revenue from such exportation to offset their workers’ salaries on monthly basis.
Ogunwusi also advised state governments to utilise the investment opportunities in the country and those there states were blessed with to boost their IGR.
“This will, automatically, make them less dependent on the Federal Government; rather they would be taking advantage of their individual natural resources to raise their IGR,” he said.
The monarch appealed to the governments to pay their workers salaries to cushion the effect of the harsh economic condition.
NAN reports that many state governments still owe their workers many months of unpaid salaries despite Federal Government’s bail-out funds given to them. (NAN)
