Taraba State Governor, Agbu Kefas
Chairman of the Taraba State Environmental and Sanitation Agency, Hon. Illiya Kefas, has dismissed reports suggesting that Governor Agbu Kefas ordered the reduction of salaries for members of the Operation Keep Taraba Clean initiative, popularly known as street sweepers.
Speaking on the issue, the agency chairman said the salary adjustment was an internal administrative decision aimed at sustaining the agency’s operations and was not directed by the governor.
Hon. Kefas explained that the agency had to carefully manage its resources due to the growing number of casual workers engaged across the 16 local government areas of the state.
According to him, the agency carries several financial responsibilities, including payments to local government coordinators, supervisors, monitoring teams and casual workers involved in sanitation activities statewide.
“We have 16 Local Government Coordinators including Ngada and Yantu. We pay some N200,000, the least among them is N100,000 Monitoring team.
“We also have supervisors, the least we pay them is N50,000 per person, and we have 10 of them. There are more than 100 casual staffs across the 16 Local Government. We spend over 5 million on feeding the boys that works on daily basis,” Hon. Illiya Kefas said.
The chairman added that team leaders supervising roadside cleaning operations also receive daily allowances, noting that the agency spends substantial funds on environmental sanitation, waste evacuation and other cleaning activities across the state.
He maintained that the measures taken by the agency were intended to ensure the continuity of its sanitation programmes and effective service delivery across Taraba State.
