Gombe State Governor, Muhammad Yahaya, decried the inability of his administration to pay the N30,000 minimum wage to workers in the state.
The governor who was interviewed during a live telecast on Channels Television’s News Night, Yahaya said there is no way he can mint money in a bid to meet the workers’ needs.
“The situation is like everywhere else. Our own is terribly worse because as a state, if you check through the revenue table, Gombe is virtually second to the last.
“I think we only top Nasarawa and Ekiti or we go virtually at the same level. There’s no way I can just print money and come and give to the people,” he said.
The Gombe state governor claimed that previous administrations, especially the last government did not care about the minimum wage.
Yahaya who accused ex-governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of embarking on elephant projects said his predecessor did not focus on issues that affected the people of the state positively.
“His concern was not more on the human capital but on flimsy white elephant projects that are not really touching the people.
“The former governor and the government were clueless because they did not focus on real issues that were touching the people,” he stated.
Speaking on revenue, the governor revealed that the state generates N300million monthly, adding that it relies on the Federal Government for monthly allocation.
He, however, blamed bad governance and poor practices as the major cause of poorly generated Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
