As the ongoing industrial action by workers in Kogi State enters day five today, the state government yesterday, described the strike as act of sabotage.
This came as a human rights activist, Abdul Miliki, threw his weight behind the strike, calling on the government to settle with labour as well as resolve the lingering crisis in the state House of Assembly.
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, joined by the banks have been on strike since Monday protesting government decision to open salary accounts for workers in Zenith Bank, while local government workers were opened in Access Bank.
The workers are also protesting six months salary arrears, as well as the sending-off of some top government functionaries on compulsory leave without any allegation against them.
Government, however, in a statement by Commissioner for Information and Culture, Muhammed Awwal, said the workers’ action was an of sabotage, considering the fact that payment of arrears of salaries had commenced two weeks ago.
Advertisement
According to him, “48 MDAs out of the total 55 MDAs have been paid, seven MDAs are yet to be paid because the correct grade levels of the workers are being verified. Salary variations were received from many MDAs for the month of February to April 2016. 14 councils with correct information has been paid, while both local governments and state pensioners will be paid in days.
“Government has the best interest of the civil servants and the entire Kogi State at heart. I assure you that Government is working round the clock to ensure that the remaining civil servants are paid within the coming days.”
Supporting the strike, Miliki, in a statement, said Ortom should change tactics as his administration since inception on January 27, had been embroiled in avoidable crisis of monumental proportion that the state had never been witnessed in the 24 years of its creation.
0 comments:
Post a Comment