A Policy Consultant on governance, Ademola Oshodi, has attributed the inability of the State Governments in Nigeria to pay workers’ salaries to lack of proper planning.

Speaking in an interview on Channels Television’s daily breakfast show, Sunrise Daily, on Monday, Mr Oshodi stressed the need for State Governments to plan with proper data.

He noted that most States expected that the Federal Government’s allocation would be continuous or increased,  but got roughly 50% of what they used to have before.

The expert stressed that it was good to plan before execution, explaining that it was difficult in cases where people were willing to construct roads, factories, and other amenities without the necessary information and data.

He advised the State Governments to empower their Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, ensuring that they were supplied with the necessary information data from various agencies.

The policy consultant on governance pointed out that if the population of a certain area is known, it gives the opportunity to plan. “This would enhance the economic outcome of the locality.”

He said the Office of the Statistician-General would get the information, get the data and disperse it to the relevant authority of the State Governments.

Mr Oshodi noted that with such data and information, the government would do the needful which is to manage their policy and programmes based on every available evidence from the Statistics Bureau.

He also added that the reasons States got into the mess were also political.