By Norbert Wasso
Mayors, deputy mayors, and city mayors who are non-civil servants, are seething over non-payment of salary arrears.
The arrears which have accrued to ten months since 2025, add to an earlier 16-month arrears which some of them did not receive.. In a chat with one of the aggrieved mayors in the North West Region, who spoke on condition of strict anonymity, insisting he wasn’t officially mandated to speak to the press, he intimated to The SUN that the first 16 months arrears, spans the period they were elected into office in 2016 and 2017.
He recalled that the Head of State’s decree of 5th September 2015, instituting salaries for non-civil-servant mayors, was effectively implemented as from April 2017. He continued that when calculations were effected as to what was owed them, the calculations started from 2017, leaving out 16 months.
The deputy mayor in question admitted that while some mayors, deputy mayors, and Government Delegates’ situations were completely cleared, he doesn’t know why some were left out. He revealed that in October 2023, in Order Number 056, the Director General of Treasury, Mr. Moh Sylvester had directed councils to communicate the situation of salary arrears of non-civil-servant-mayors of the 2013-2020 mandate. He said their files were deposited on October 18, 2023, and in early 2024, some municipal authorities were paid, while others, like them, are still waiting. “It has been impossible to get the Director General of Treasury to have an explanation”, he told The SUN.
The deputy mayor cried out that “they’re really suffering”, especially since salaries that had been flowing normally started witnessing difficulties in 2025, To the point that they have not had salaries since November 2025 .
As to why they haven’t received their invoices, he said one of them was afraid to speak out due to fear of reprisal. A top official at the Ministry of Decentralization and Local Development confided to The SUN on condition of anonymity, that 16 months can’t be true, but most, if not all, have salary arrears. He added that it’s the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance.(MINFI). He revealed that his ministry “had calculated and transmitted everything to the Ministry of Finance (MINFI)”.
It should be noted that on November 1, 2022, the Minister of Decentralization and Local Development, George Elanga Obam, in a press release No 000047, informed municipal authorities that following instructions from the Head of State, their salary arrears have been budgeted under the Common Decentralization Fund of that year .
The mayors are in a quandary as to who will rescue them and when will their situation be normalized.
It seems most of them are relying on the Minister of decentralization and Local development, George Elanga Obam to push through their case.
Over 100 mayors and city mayors in the country are non-civil-servants.