The gale of unpaid salaries sweeping across the country is also causing havoc in the Ivory Tower, as staff of the Institute of Management and Technology, IMT Enugu have cried out to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi over the matter.
Some of the lecturers who spoke to The Nation on their plight, appealed to the state government to pay their May, June and July salaries, stressing that the inability of the state government to pay their arrears after receiving the federal government bailout puts them in a tight corner.
A member of the staff who would not want his name in print, told The Nation that efforts made by the management of the institution to see the state governor after his inauguration have yielded no fruits.
According to the staff, most of them now find it difficult to provide put food on their family tables and to so adequately, not to say anything about fulfiling other financial obligations including payment of their children school fees and house rents.
“You know the situation in IMT. We were getting N20million monthly subvention from the state government abinitio; that was when the student population was much and when they (student) were reduced, we started getting N120million subvention from the immediate past Governor of the state; Barr. Iheanacho Sullivan Chime.
“We were paid half salary in February, in March we were paid fully and since then, we are yet to receive salary from the state government. It might interest you to know that while we are waiting to be paid, one of us, though a non-academic staff with the works department died because he hadn’t the money to foot his medical bills.
“We learnt that members of the management of our institution have made efforts to see the Governor, but their efforts we understand has proved unsuccessful.
“The situation is not a funny one. None payment of workers salary is not peculiar to Enugu State, I agree. But the federal government through the intervention and magnanimity of President Buhari graciously granted financial bailout to states recently and Enugu is among the states that were granted the bailout and one would expect that IMT being a state managed institution should also be able to pay her workers from the bailout fund. The situation is not funny here. Many staff has been using the IMT auditorium for prayers and in our various private praying times, it has been our praying point that God will touch the heart of Governor Ugwuanyi to come to our rescue,” the source pleaded.