Salary harmonisation will curb corruption – PPA

Peter Ameh, the Chairman, Progressive Peoples’ Party, has appealed to the Federal Government to reconsider harmonisation of salary in public sector to curb corruption in the country.
Ameh spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday  on the sidelines of a book launch entitled: “Ufedo the Honest Girl’’ written by Israel Ade in Abuja.
He said the issue of corruption was disturbing everyone and it had eaten deep into the nation’s fabric.
He said: “The challenge with the Nigerian system is that there is no balance of salary between workers, some are earning more than others and it creates anxiety.
“The military man who is out there working to save lives earn less than the NNPC worker in the office and this is contributing greatly to corruption.
“Most civil servants don’t have houses and even the housing scheme that would have helped them to acquire houses through installment payment is not there.’’
According to him, this creates insecurity for workers about their retirement and so they resort to stealing to acquire wealth and property before they retire.
Ameh said that if salaries were harmonised by the government, people would have no reason to steal since they would be comfortable enough to cater for their future.
He said that though Nigerians had less resources and social amenities, “crime level and dishonesty was low compared to that of other countries considering their plights’’.
He said in the U.S. there were enough policemen to protect the people and they were present on almost every street, adding that in Nigeria, police were hardly seen on the streets.
Ameh said: “Nigerians should be commended for being law abiding, but we still need to go back to the good values of the nation like honesty so as to curb social vices.’’
Ameh commended the author for the book, saying that the book addressed the issue of honesty, child labour among other things.
He said that the book also talked about how foster parents maltreat children because they did not give birth to them.
He also called on parents to be children’s keeper regardless of whose children they were.
The book reviewer, Idayat Hassan, the Director, Centre for Democracy Development said that the book taught morals and honesty.
The director said that the lessons on morals in the book were necessary, especially in a society like Nigeria with moral decadence.
She said that this was because with hard work and honesty the situation of the country could be changed.
The author of the book, Israel Ade, said the book aimed to challenge young people on the need to do good deeds and avoid any trace of bad behaviour.
According to him, the choice to either do good or evil rest with individuals regardless of the challenges they faced.
He called on the government intensify grassroots campaign against child trafficking and its menace.