The Taraba State Government has defended its decision to cut the salary of street workers in the state from N15,000 to N10,000.
NPO Reported that the state government had yesterday announced the salary cut.
The Chairman of the Taraba State Environmental and Sanitation Agency, Hon. Illiya Kefas, had announced the pay cut of the workers employed under the Operation Keep Taraba Clean programme.
Kefas, in his address to newsmen cited the need to accommodate newly recruited workers as reason behind the development.
This had however been met with heavy backlash as members of the public slammed the state government over the reduction of a salary largely insufficient and far below the minimum wage.
Reacting to the backlash on Tuesday, Kefas clarified that the decision was made to sustain the operation of the agency.
The agency chairman, in defence of the decision, said workers dissatisfied with the new allowance were free to leave the programme.
“I have the right to ask my people to work at N10,000. Anyone interested will work, and if you are not, you can go your way,” he reportedly said in a text message to journalists.
Meanwhile, Kefas clarified that the state Governor, Agbu Kefas, was not involved in the decision which he claimed to be an internal affair within the agency.
“The arrangement was an internal decision to sustain the activities of the agency and not a directive from the governor,” He said.
The senior official held that the agency also bears the cost of maintaining local government coordinators, supervisors, monitoring teams and casual sanitation workers.