HALF SALARY: Labour unions fume, give Kogi govt one week ultimatum to pay up

The Governor Yahaya Bello-led government of Kogi state has incurred the wrath of labour unions for allegedly paying workers in the state half salaries as Salah gift.

The angry labour unions in the state, among them the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Public Service Joint Negotiating Council (PSJNC), have therefore asked the governor to on or before Tuesday, September 12, 2017 make full payments to the state workers.

Governor Bello is said to have during the Salah celebration paid workers in the state half salaries as Salah gift. It was learnt that 50 per cent and 40 per cent was deducted from salaries of state workers and local government workers/teachers respectively.

But the Organised Labour in Kogi State, apparently angry with the development in a bulletin dated September 5 and made available to newsmen on Wednesday, issued a one week ultimatum to the Kogi State government to pay its workforce full salary in order to further sustain the industrial peace and harmony in the state.

The unions’ chairmen who signed the bulletin, also called on the state government to explain to the public what happened to the allocation Kogi State received in the month of June 2017 without mentioning the previous months.

They promised the state workers that their positions on “no percentage/half salary as proposed by government,” stands.

The bulletin states, “Comrades, it is no longer news that government has made good her threat of reducing our salaries to 50 per cent and 40 per cent for state workers and local government workers/teachers respectively.

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“That the organised labour derived recurrent wage bill of N3.1 Billion from the government’s presentation to the organised labour during our meetings on 29th and 30th of August 2017. We wish to bring to your notice that government in response to our correspondence on this matter has now brought down the monthly wage bill of the state from the earlier N3.1 billion to N2.6 billion.

“Comrades, if the N2.6 billion being quoted now by government as July 2017 wage bill is sacrosanct, and if the monthly allocation that accrued to the State from the Federation Account without the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) shared in the month of August 2017 stands as N2.6 billion as presented to the organised labour during the said meeting on this matter, we then wish to ask; why the percentage payment of salary even when government could further access some funds from its IGR for other government expenditure(s)?”

 

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