*AHEAD OF CHRISTMAS, NEW YEAR ; UNPAID IMO WORKERS CRY LOUD BEG UZODINMA TO RESCUE THEM FROM THEIR BAD DECISION*
BY OKEY ALOZIE
More than 500 Imo workers who have not received their salary since this year are now facing difficult situation as their bad condition is getting worst every day.
Our roving reporter who visited some of the unpaid Imo workers in their homes observed they are dying of hunger and cannot take good care of their family any longer. Many of them have been evicted from their apartment because of money. One of them who spoke to our reporter under strict anonymity disclosed that he love his children but now he cannot take care of them and as a result of this their mother took them away. With this ugly experience, the unpaid workers vowed not to allow any of his children to be a civil servant. A female unpaid worker who narrated her ordeal in the hands of men said her life is now miserable. According to the young lady, every man she ask for help want to take advantage of her condition to sleep with her, even the married men in her office want to be having sex with her on daily basis before offering any help.
The unpaid workers expressed disappointment on the side of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) for not fighting for them. The unpaid workers are now deeply in tears and agony. They now see themselves as being rejected from the society.
They submitted that they have no plan for Christmas and New year celebration.
It could be recalled that the present shared prosperity government of Dist. Senator Hope Uzodinma declared many civil servant ghost workers and for many years good number of the so called ghost workers have not received salary because their names were removed from government payroll. By January this year attendance registers were submitted to the office of head of service and many names were directly or indirectly missed out. The attendance became very important in line with the policy of clock in clock out.
Those whose names were missing out of the attendance list could not get their salaries up till this November 2024.
From records over 300 workers were complaining of salary withheld and their fear now is that government may have sacked them indirectly having seized and stopped their salaries for more than nine months now former head of service Barr. Raymond Ucheoma was reported to have come underfire for arbitrarily stopping the salaries of over 300 Imo civil servants while in office. The workers were said to have been drawn from across different ministries, departments and agencies.