Kwara ACN on Monday (today) backed the NULGE on the 14-day ultimatum the workers' body gave the state government to either pay its June/July salaries or face industrial action.

But the party added that the non-payment of salary is just a symptom of "political deceit, endemic corruption and mindless economic sabotage championed by the PDP-led state government in active connivance with the party's leadership." The party's state chairman, Kayode Olawepo, said in a statement issued in Ilorin that there could be no "reasonable" explanation for the habitual delay in the payment of salaries, a problem he said is unique to Kwara.

The statement read: "We support in its totality the action and resolution of the NULGE in Kwara State on the issues of salaries and welfare. There could be no reasonable explanation for the habitual delay or refusal to pay workers every month.

"But we are quick to point out that the non payment of salaries is just one of the symptoms of the political deceit, endemic corruption and mindless economic sabotage championed by the PDP-led state government in active connivance with the party's leadership.

"If it is true that the problem is not restricted to Kwara, as their self-style leader claimed in a recent propaganda, how come only Kwara State workers are perpetually in the news for not getting paid because the state government either did not pay the councils or has butchered the statutory allocation meant for local governments? While some state governments (non oil producing states for that matter) have paid August salaries, Kwara government has not paid many of its workers June and July salaries.

"We have repeatedly said that Kwara's fund including money belonging to local government councils is being used to redeem debts taken to sustain an anti-development political empire at the expense of the common man. There's nothing on the ground to justify the state's surging debt profile. We repeat our calls on the anti-graft agencies to vet the financial books of the state government. Their failure to act over the years is plunging our people deeper into abject poverty, despondency, and breeding youth restiveness.

"We urge our people to continue to speak up and be ready to enforce a change in Kwara beginning from next year's local council poll where they (voters)should ensure that only persons capable stopping the bleeding are elected."

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