Public servants, remuneration disparity and health of economy

The Udoji Awards of the 1970s were recommendations made by the Udoji Public Service Review Commission for salary increases, civil servant training, administrative structure reforms, and the introduction of goal-oriented management. Shortly after the Nigerian Civil War, the civil service scale was reviewed by the military government to examine the organisation, structure and management of the public service. It was claimed that the said salary review introduced some form of inflation into the nation’s economic system because of the open display of the unexpected comfortable disposable income, affluence and high spending spree by civil servants all over the country; which was based on their highly elevated salary structure. The trend as witnessed then appears now to be the complete opposite of the experiences of today’s civil servants and salary earning employees in all parts of the country. The salary earning workers in today’s Nigerian economy have very weak purchasing power that cannot match the ever rising inflation, while their take-home keeps thinning down in monetary value in the light of obvious static remunerations. The current economic challenges millions of Nigerians are facing is such that their salaries cannot meet up with the market spending pressures for basic daily needs and provisions in running homes and family expenditures.

The local currency’s steady fall and constant devaluation have exacerbated the economic hardship with high inflation being experienced by most Nigerians in the middle class of the economy. This unbearable situation further impoverishes the working class in the society due to the paucity of funds to meet their daily needs and, who can no longer afford adequate food in their homes. Families no longer feed their growing children well any more as their purses are getting more and more overstretched by the ever mounting essential needs that are elusive and are constantly no longer met. Looking at this hopeless economic situation from the perspective of augmenting the take-home of paid employees in the labour market, the national current account status, unfortunately, is not healthy enough to support such presumed national financial load. This, of course, is the case in hand, because those in authority appear to be rendering poor governance, whereas the hope of improving the economy through enhanced productivity is never encouraged within the system due to the endemic systemic corrupt practices that are gradually killing the country.

The current burning national issues – the labour agitation for salary increase or scaling up of the national minimum wage, and the nationwide industrial action – are like two cones with different faces. In well organised economies, such ugly and shameful development does not arise because the human resources planning organs in all developed countries are constantly engaged to be productive and also earn very decent living. People living in such organised systems are proactively scheduling that aspect of social inclusion (salary placement) to be reasonably prosecuted without fear or favour. Our system is so disorganised that the national data analysis, which should constantly be utilised in placement and staff remunerations of Nigerians in the labour market, is never updated nor considered for the sake of numerous poor Nigerians. What our leaders do on the contrary is to abnormally pad salaries and allowances (above measure) for themselves and their cronies. This is where the problem of the country begins. The leadership, without conscience, keeps squeezing the sick and poor to do more by way of heaping more taxes on the helpless. These very leaders take home abnormal earnings, while their subjects go home with little more than nothing. The obvious pain witnessed in the attempt at correcting the economy for the better, further faces challenges that seem irreversible in the eyes of ordinary Nigerians. This singular observation shows the very huge disparity in the salary structures between those in government and those struggling in the streets of Nigeria.

Disparity in salaries in the country needs to be addressed. Closing such a gap entails huge sacrifices by those in government in willing to scale down and also sacrifice in many other ways that offer hope of survival to every Nigerian. Such financial adjustment can be by way of improving the salaries that can reasonably sustain all essential expenditure of humble families that earn very little above the expected minimum wage.  

Nigerian politicians in general are, therefore, called upon to patriotically contribute and support economic growth that can enhance gross domestic product (GDP), increase productivity rate, improve export trade arrangements that can become the key to economic survival by improving the lots of those repatriating foreign exchange from exports. Such an arrangement can also become the template that an ailing economy could productively apply when seeking to close the gap on finance. A situation where the minimum wage is fixed (for a pittance) and compared to the basic salaries of all elected officials (that count their take home in millions) is one among other strategies that shall close the gap of remunerations among civil servants within the economy.

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