The leadership of organised labour in Bauchi state has decried the non payment of its members for about seven months ranging from state and local government payrolls.
The organized labour comprising of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Joint Public Service Negotiation Council (JNC) while appealing to Bauchi State Government to as a matter of urgency, settle all the the outstanding salaries of their members, said so far 3,722 workers are yet to receive their salaries for about seven months.
Addressing journalists at the Union’s Secretariat in Bauchi, the State NLC Chairman Comrade Danjuma Saleh urged the State Government to address all issues relating to stoppage of it’s members salaries in the state.
“In line with our principle of ‘An Injury to One is an Injury to all’, the Joint Executive Council of NLC/TUC has given it’s leadership the mandate to formally advise the government to, as a matter of urgency address all issues relating to non-payment of salaries and arrears to Civil Servants in the state and Local Governments, as well as enrollment of retirees into the state pension payroll”
According to him, the organized labour had expressed it’s reservation and doubts over the capacity of the consulting firm handling the verification exercise, which he said has exceeded it’s time frame.
“You will recall that since the beginning of this year (2020) Messrs Dynatech Consultants were engaged by the state government to sanitize the payroll of government employees at the state and local government levels”.
“We were however assured that the firm is equal to the task. The labor then took the government by it’s words, nine months into it’s assignment as against the four months earlier planned” he said.
Comrade Saleh expressed disheartening with how the firm had removed a seizable number of innocent and unsuspecting civil servants from the government’s payroll both at the state and local government levels.
“Such employees have been thrown in to confusion and untold hardships occasioned by the stoppage of their salaries” Danjuma noted.
He described the category of civil servants affected to include those who have spent between 2-7 months without salaries, those whose salaries have been slashed without justification, others who have not been paid arrears for 2 to 3 months after being restored into payroll and some retired civil servants not enrolled into the pension payroll.
The State NLC Chairman while commending the State Governor Senator Bala Mohammed on his performance in the areas of physical development, health care delivery, education, water supply, agriculture and youth development in the state, also advised the government to urgently set machinery into action to address all pending salaries of the workers as well as enrollment of retirees in the state payroll.
