BY Okey Alozie
Should the government of Imo State fail to respond to the demands of the Civil Servants in the State, a strike action is starring on the face of the Owelle Rochas Okorocha administration.
The looming danger ahead manifested through the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Imo State chapter, Comrade Austin Chilakpu who expressed that the organized labour in the state are no longer comfortable with the prevailing nonpayment and under payment of workers’ salaries and allowances in the state.
Trumpeta through investigations discovered that some government agencies are owed backlog of salaries, while under payment of salaries and entitlements has become the character of the Imo State government.
While some agencies and parastatals are yet to receive their monthly salaries as at when due, workers in higher institutions like Imo State Polytechnic and Imo State University Teaching Hospital, IMSUTH are starving. For instance, in Imopoly, they are owed six months’ salary arrears even as the management has started implementing under payment salary method.
An interview Comrade Chilakpu granted a national daily, Trumpeta picked online indicates that the NLC may go on strike to call the state government to order.
According to Chilakpu “workers are aware that the state gets monthly allocation from the federation account, stressing that there could not have been any cogent reason why workers salaries should run into arrears.
“I am seriously under pressure from the entire workers in Imo State. They are complaining bitterly about their unpaid salaries. They are no longer comfortable with the under-payment of their salaries.
Continuing, Chilakpu said that from their investigations, there was no monthly federal allocation that excluded Imo State.
“So, there is no moral justification for the Government of Imo State, to start owing workers, as it is currently doing now. Schools are resuming soon and the meager take home pay of workers are no longer taking them home, not to talk of sending the children back to school”, Chilakpu fumed.
“The leadership of the organized labour in the State, is calling on the state government to, as a matter of urgency, pay all the workers their full salaries and all the arrears by this week. I would not like anybody to turn round tomorrow and claim that the organized labour is either embarrassing government or being sponsored by any group or person.
He explained that labour in Imo State had shown more than enough understanding with government, pointing out that “because of what the workers are facing now, we cannot guarantee industrial harmony if the workers are not paid in the days ahead”.
Chilakpu equally used the opportunity to urge Governor Rochas Okorocha to pay the frail and famished pensioners.
“These retired workers are dying in installments. They did not commit any offence by serving the state. These are people who spent their youthful years in the service of their fatherland. Allowing to die a slow and painful death is not the best way to pay them for their labour”, Chilakpu said.
Answering another question, the labour leader fumed that teachers did not benefit from the last promotion exercise in the state”.
