Workers set for short down with Bello

Stories by Moses John

Abuja

Workers in Kogi State have vowed to resist Governor Yahaya Bello resolve to sack about 1774 workforce from the state civil service.
Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress( NLC), in the state, Comrade Onuh Edoka told Blueprint that labour is studying the lay down rules and will come out with its position soon.
He said it is unfair the way and manner the state government is going about the issue, warning workers will not accept policies that targeted at their members.
Comrade Edoka also described as economically unwise for the government to use billions of naira to publish names of workers, it purportedly sack but can’t pay full salary to the workers.
He said a meeting of organised labour will among other things consider a court action on the issue, while appealing to the affected workers to be calm and wait the action of Labour on the matter.
Edoka however, asked the general public to disregard the up-to-date salary payment claim by the kogi state government, alleging that only sixty percent of salaries were paid to selected civil servants up to december 2017, with no mention of when the balance of forty percent will be cleared.
“The action was a fallout of a screening exercise which the state government has conducted. We also feel the right language government should have use is to say workers who were not clear rather than say they were sack. Because the reason of sack them has not been establish, but government position was that they were found wanting in one way or the other, either forge certificate or huge amount of money was found in their account and government should consulted us before taken any action.
On the position of labour on the issue, comrade Onuh said” We met yesterday and agreed that the secrecy in government is going about this cannot be acceptable by the unions. You accused somebody of having forge certificate, the person brought a proof from the Institution he attended showing the authenticity of the certificate, but government is still insisting the certificate is fake. So we cannot longer establish who is lying against who. So labour have a committee in place, studying Civil Service Rule and soon, we will come out with our position on the matter.
“How will you say you are not owing, when you pay 60 percent salary to workers. So I see that comment as political, and he say that to gain cheap popularity.
The administration of Governor yahaya Bello has been on a showdown with organised labour since he assumed office, but the government has continue to insist that it is reforming the civil service for optimum performance.

 

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