Hundreds of workers under the banner of Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) yesterday staged a protest at the office of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.
The workers chanted solidarity songs and displayed banners with different inscriptions saying that they are being owed salaries for July and August 2018.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that inscribed on some of the placards carried by the protesting workers were: “Visionscape and Environment and others, “Don’t make life difficult for us’’, “Accumulation of salary.” “We don’t want deduction of salary’’,“Don’t politicise our lives’’, “Governor should know sweepers are also voters,’’ among others.
The workers complained that there were discrepancies in their salaries, adding that they had not been given identity cards and employment letters.
One of the protesters, Salau Ologun, said their employer was making life difficult for them.She accused the government of being insensitive to their plight, adding that they could not continue to suffer in silence.
Addressing the protesters, the Permanent Secretary, State Ministry of Environment, Abiodun Bamgboye, told the protesters that their July and August salaries were ready.
Bamgboye said that government took the project from the company that was handling it and had been trying to put things in order, adding that, “that was why things had not taken proper shape”.
“We were able to clear the salaries from January to June.
It is true we owe July and August but we have got approval for the payment.We are trying to audit the staff and the accounts and ensure that we are not paying ghost workers.
There are some anomalies in the system.
“Your normal salary is N18, 500 per month.
Whoever collects less than that should lodge a complaint and attach his or her payment slip, if the person has been reporting for work regularly.We don’t want to send your money through intermediaries, which is why we pay you through banks,’’ he said.
The permanent secretary assured the workers that their identity cards, letters of employment, and other conditions of engagement would soon be ready