C’River Govt owes teachers and local govt workers eight months salaries
The Cross-River state government owed teachers, local government and health workers over eight months salaries. Already, the effected workers have abandoned their duty posts whilst attending to their private endeavors. Irked by this development, the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) the state picketed the Ministry of Local Government Affairs and the Office of the Head of Service (HoS).
Lamenting the situation, Chairman of NLC in the state, John Ushie said newsmen at the Ministry of Finance in Calabar that the picketing became necessary because they had exhausted all avenues, including dialogue and signing of Memorandum of Understanding between labor and the government.
He said if the picketing fails to yield the desired result, labor will embark on total strike to press for workers` demands, “The state had engaged the service of a consultant who carried out personnel audit and tagged some civil servants as ‘ghost workers” and expressed regret that the development had resulted in the stoppage of their salaries.
“As I speak, there are local government workers and primary school teachers who have not received salaries since June 2016. We discovered that a lot of our colleagues are dying while some are becoming bed-ridden and many of them can no longer take care of their responsibilities as parents because they no longer receive salaries.”
“How can you tag someone who is qualified and has been working for close to 20 years as a ghost worker when he is present at work every day? The consultant is the major cause of our problem and he must leave. We are not against any form of audit but they should bring a firm that can do the job creditably. If nothing is done after this exercise, we shall review our stand and go on total strike because an injury to one is an injury to all,” he slammed.
Consequently, Ushie maintained that labor was not against personnel audit, but insisted that the job of the consultant must end at screening. He said the consultant should not be involved in the payment of salaries of civil servants in the state. Clarkson Otu, the TUC Chairman, said that it was quite disheartening for a worker who is dedicated to his job not to be paid for eight months.
The commissioners for Local Government Affairs and the Head of service, John Ulafo and Ekpeyong Henshaw respectively were not successful.
