The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Abia workers

  • Abia workers demand pay

    Abia State has acknowledged receipt of N3b bailout from the Federal Government to clear salary arrears but that has not stopped the state workers from asking for their backlog of pay.

    The civil servants are said to be owed between four and nine months in salary depending on the parastatal.

    Senior Special Assistant to Abia State Governor on Media, Mr. Ugochukwu Emezue said the salaries would soon be paid.

    Some local government staff, who spoke anonymously with our correspondent for fear of victimization, said that they were yet to get their salaries after February payment.

    A health worker said, “The situation is so bad that some of us who don’t have money to feed our families have withdrawn our children and wards from school because not everyone has the money to pay or afford the school fees private schools demand. Some of us owe our landlords; we are yet to renew our house rent.

    Some whose landlords could not show understanding have been asked to quit their flats and apartments. That is how bad the situation has gotten to and we are yet to know the position of government about our case.

    “It was these problems that led the federal government to give bailout funds to states and we prayed so very hard for it to happen and since the bailout was release, we are yet to be paid our salaries by the state government. We don’t know what the state government is waiting for to order that the money be used to pay our salaries.

    Another civil servant said, “We have been finding it very difficult to transport ourselves to the office…but they still want us to be coming to work daily and punctual too.”

    The Nation gathered that the delay in the payment may be connected to the staff audit in some, if not all, of the local governments and parastatals, owing to government’s determination to address reported cases of ghost workers in the state civil service, a situation which a local government in the state confirmed.

    A worker at Obingwa Local Government Area told our correspondent that they are being owed about four months in salaries, adding that they now use a log book as a means of checking truancy among staff of the council, a system the staff said was introduced by their Head of Service.

    According to the staff, it was shocking that some people that have even traveled overseas like we learnt were earning salaries which the use of log book has helped the council to uncover.

    A source in the state told our reporter the state got N3billion from the Federal Government but needed N6billion to pay its workers.

  • Candidate promises to reinstate sacked Abia workers

    Despite may come the way of non-indigenous workers who were disengaged from the Abia State civil service in 2010. But that is if Chief Chikwe Udensi, the state’s governorship candidate of the Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA), wins the election.

    Speaking at an event where his wife Chidinma distributed gift items to indigent women and widows in Aba, Udensi said that the sufferings of non-native workers disengaged from the state by the incumbent administration would end if he became governor.

    He emphasised that he would not only recall them but also pay their arrears.

    The PPA candidate said he was disturbed by the plight of the workers and decided to make it a priority, if elected, to address the injustice when he learnt that it was only workers from the core Igbo speaking states that were affected.

    He said it was wrong for the Igbo who he stated had been unduly treated in other parts of the country to also suffer the same fate in their land, stressing that it was more disturbing that workers from neighbouring non-Igbo  states were not affected by that mass sack.

    The former National Secretary, Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) said apart from recalling the sacked workers, that he would pay their outstanding salaries and other entitlements if he won the election because, according to him, they were unjustly sacked.

    He also promised to pay retirees their pensions and gratuities.

    “Workers have suffered in this state, but I will definitely put smiles on their faces if I become the governor of the state after next month’s election. We are going to ensure that their salaries and other emoluments are paid promptly. A situation where retirees will stay for years without receiving their gratuity and several months before their pension are paid will be a thing of the past under our watch,” he assured.

    Prince Emeka Okafor, PPA state chairman who also graced the event thanked the women for standing solidly behind the party all these years despite all odds, adding “what Abia needs today after years in the doldrums is prosperity” which he said PPA represented and assured that the party would rebuild Aba and others parts of the state if it comes to power by May 29.

    He urged the women in particular and Abians in general to ensure they obtained their permanent voters cards (PVCs) and use them wisely during the election in order to get the desired change.

    The wife of the PPA governorship candidate, Mrs. Udensi said she decided to fete the women at this auspicious time due to her love for the poor in society.

    The organizer of the event said that she had in the past seven years through her NGO catered for the less privileged including widows, orphans and procured drugs HIV patients free, stated that this will be a continuous event.

    Some of the women who spoke randomly to newsmen expressed happiness over the benevolence of the wife of the PPA governorship candidate, stressing that this was the first time the wife  of any governorship candidate would be remembering widows in the state to the level Chidinma did and wished her and her husband well.

  • Abia workers’ unpaid salaries

    SIR: When Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and other patriots in the Nigerian Governor’s Forum were raising awareness on the massive misappropriation of the country’s oil earnings and lack of accountability, the PDP led Federal Government went all out to weaken, if not destroy, the governors forum. It suited them to do so in order to have no challenge in their rapacious treasury looting.

    But now, even PDP governors are feeling the pinch, yet none of them can muster the guts to complain. A major fallout of this is the inability of some states – ironically enough, mostly PDP – controlled – to pay workers’ salaries.

    In Abia State, the situation is about one of the worst. For about four months now, primary and secondary school teachers, Abia SUBEB staff and staff of Secondary Education Management Board have not been paid their salaries. (Salaries were last paid for April). Local Government workers were last paid in May. Staff of the state radio and television station, the BCA, are equally being owed salaries running into months as are those of Abia State Polytechnic, Aba. That of Abia Poly was so bad that for eight months no salary was paid to workers until recently when they were paid only four months following a strike.

    The question workers – teacher, LG Staff, Abia SUBEB staff, etc. are asking is:

    What is going on in Abia State? Are the state and local government allocations not coming to Abia State? How is it that the local governments, being run with Governor T. A. Orji’s appointees since 2011, cannot pay salaries given that none of the councils embarked on any meaningful development projects. It is infuriating when the government assails us with propaganda on its so – called Legacy Projects. Who will enjoy these ‘Legacy Projects’? Corpses. When citizens have been starved to death, who then will enjoy those “Legacy Projects”?

    It may suit the Abia State governor to treat workers anyhow because he is not coming up for re-election, but his party, PDP, should note the ill-will his actions is attracting to the party.

    The labour unions – NULGE, NASU, NUT, etc, and the parent body, NLC – should note that their members are disappointed in them for keeping quiet over this matter.

    As for the opposition parties, namely APC and APGA, I urge them to sit up and speak out on the many failings of the T.A. Orji-led government of Abia State. With a good, sustained campaign on the failings of the PDP government in Abia, the opposition will easily defeat the party in the 2015 general elections.

    The governor and his party are forgetting that civil servants constitute a significant part of the population that bothers to vote at elections.

     

    • Ibe A. Uche

    Umuahia

     

     

  • Sacked Abia workers hold peaceful protest in Aba

    Sacked Abia workers hold peaceful protest in Aba

    WORKERS disengaged from the Abia State civil service in 2011, on Thursday in Aba, held a peaceful protest to further press home their demand to be recalled and reintegrated into the state workforce. The protesters, dressed in black outfits, matched to the office of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and a local radio station, after attempts by a combined team of police and soldiers to stop them failed. The protesters displayed placards with various inscriptions like ‘Call us back to work’; ‘Igbo is one’; ‘Call us and pay us’; ‘56 disengaged non-indigenes are dead’; ‘We need Justice’ and ‘We need total recall, no discrimination’ among others. The leader of the group, Mr. Ugochukwu Unogu, said that they decided to embark on the peaceful protest to further press home their demand to be reabsorbed into the state civil service after other attempts to attract the attention of the state government have failed. “The so-called recall is a charade. It is not true. Only very few were re-instated. An insignificant number has been recalled, but over 3,500 non-indigene workers have not been recalled. “Our demand is that we should be recalled totally and not given selective recall, while the three years arrears owed us should be paid.