The Chairman of the Taraba State Environmental and Sanitation Agency, Illiya Kefas, has defended the decision to reduce the monthly allowance of street sweepers under the Operation Keep Taraba Clean programme from N15,000 to N10,000.
Speaking on Tuesday, Kefas said the controversial reduction was an internal administrative decision by the agency and not a directive from Governor Agbu Kefas.
“The arrangement was an internal decision to sustain the activities of the agency and not a directive from the governor,” he said.
His clarification followed comments made a day earlier in which he linked the reduction to resource management challenges arising from the recruitment of additional workers into the state and local government civil services.
According to Kefas, increasing operational costs and the expanding workforce across Taraba’s 16 local government areas made the adjustment necessary.
The latest cut means street sweepers now receive half of the N20,000 monthly allowance paid when the programme was launched in 2023.
In March 2024, the allowance was reduced from N20,000 to N15,000 after workers were reportedly asked to either accept the lower payment or leave the programme. The new N10,000 rate took effect in May 2026.
Kefas said the agency’s financial commitments extend beyond the street sweepers, covering local government coordinators, supervisors, monitoring teams and casual sanitation workers.
“We have 16 Local Government Coordinators. We pay some N200,000, while the least among them earns N100,000. We also have a monitoring team,” he said.
He added that supervisors earn a minimum of N50,000 monthly, while the agency spends more than N5 million each month feeding casual workers engaged in sanitation activities across the state.
“There are more than 100 casual staff across the 16 local governments. We spend over N5 million on feeding the boys who work on a daily basis,” Kefas said.
The agency chairman noted that additional expenses include waste evacuation, sanitation monitoring and allowances for team leaders overseeing environmental exercises.
Defending the move, Kefas said workers unhappy with the revised allowance could 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 said in a text message to journalists.
Kefas also pointed to limited allocations from the Federation Account and rising wage obligations following the recruitment of new civil servants as factors putting pressure on the agency’s finances.
