Organised Labour in Cross River State on Monday locked the gate to the State Secretariat, picketing the office to the Head of Service Mrs. Gereldine Akpet-Ekanem.
Members of the action committee of the various unions comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council stormed the secretariat along Murtala Muhammad highway in Calabar as early as 6am and put the gates under lock and keys.
They also displayed various placards with inscriptions like “The HoS must go”; “Ayade don’t kill our Civil Service,”; “Ayade payroll those employed since 2018” and “Ayade remit deductions from workers salaries to beneficiaries” amongst others.
Speaking during the picketing exercise, Raymond Akan the Chairman, Nigeria Civil Service Union, said they have written series of letters to the Head of Service over the introduction of N25,000 exams fees for directors due promotion to the post of Permanent Secretary but she was bent on carrying out her directives.
According to him. “About 150 have already paid the money and at the moment there are only 10 openings for permanent Secretaries as at Monday.
“There were twelve vacancies before today, but recently they appointed two persons by favouritism without any exams.
“We are not happy with the mandatory N25,000 which we see as an extortion and the HoS is insisting that Directors must pay to write exams.
” We are not against any form of examination but what we are against is the fees.
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“As a matter of fact, two Directors have already been made permanent Secretaries without writing any exam and since this administration came on board nobody has paid any fees to write exams, why is her case different?”
Chairman of TUC in the State, Comrade Monday Ogbodum, said these Directors, many of them who were promoted as far back as 2016, were merely given a paper as the promotion but till date the promotion has not been implemented with their salaries remain same.
He said: “We are worried about a lot of things , do you know that many of these Directors who were deputy’s and promoted to Directors in 2016 have not received a dime as Director’s .
“Now you are asking the same people to pay 25,000 naira for exam, when you know that only 12 positions are available and two were filled last week on the directive of the Governor through the office of the Chairman of Civil Service Commission and now there are just 10 vacancies.
“We are against this sort of injustice; we are against the discrepancies, we are against the selective justice and we want everything to go back to status quo, and the way it’s done,” he said.
Godwin Otei ,State Chairman Joint Public Service Negotiating Council (JNC), while addressing members at the gate of the HoS, said the discrepancy was uncalled for and must be stopped while calling on the HoS to refund all the money collected.
According to him, Governor Ben Ayade had approved N2 million already for the examination exercise, wondering why the HoS asks Directors to pay N25,000.
He called on governor Ben Ayade to intervene stressing that they would picket the office of the HoS every day no matter how long it takes.
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