.Demand Publication Of 2021 Verification Exercise
.Accuse Data Operators of Fraud, Discrimination
By Sampson Orji
In what appears to be an inhumanity exercise perpetrators by the Imo State Government against its workforce, a good number of civil servants in the local government system are wallowing in poverty over non payment of over 30 months salaries.
Trumpeta learnt that in the last two years, many listed as workers of the various LGAs in Imo State haven’t been paid salaries by the Uzodimma led administration.
Trumpeta two days learnt that the affected Imo State LGA Workers who’s salaries have been stopped for over 30 Months on Tuesday August 8, 2023 protested their illegitimate removal from the state’s salary nominal roll.
The affected workers numbering about 400 from the 27 Local Government Areas of the state had their representatives on popular Radio Programme on Darling FM 107.3, Owerri, where they alleged that the government of Senator Hope Uzodinma has not been fair to their plight since 2021 stating that after undergoing series of verification that the 3R administration has refused to explain to them why their names were yanked off from payment schedule for salaries.
One of the aggrieved workers who spoke to Trumpeta on their ugly experience said she was employed in 2005 and that after complaining of her names removal from pay slip, that they later discovered that her name was found tagged as a retired staff as at 2011 by the operators at the Data Base of the state workers to her dismay. The worker who spoke in strict anonimity for fear of further victimisation said that she has neither reached mandatory retirement age nor spent number of years due for exit in service.
Another worker while lamenting his ordeal told Trumpeta that he was duly employed during Gov Achike Udenwa’s regime adding that during the several verification exercises that his colleagues employed same time are still receiving their salaries even when he was the one that helped supply their data only for his name to be missing from the state payroll.
Also speaking, one of the victims who said he was duly employed in Owerri Municipal Council said the fraudulently entered against his name as an absconded staff even when he was diligently going to work every day while the staff from Aboh Mbaise LGA lamented that the entire department of Social Welfare in his Council Area including one of the HOD have not been paid for over 30 months.
The workers who are mostly bread winners in their families and whose relatives also depend on for survival expressed worry and disappointment with the style of governance employed by the Shared Prosperity administration on same citizens who have been left in hunger, agony and pain for the past three years.
“We have had series of verification under this government but our salary has still not started coming and most of us are dying with their families barely managing to survive.
“We are yet to be told the main reason behind our salary was stopped. As is been speculated that we are ghost workers, we demand that the results of the verification exercise conducted in 2021 by Mrs Rosemary Izuogu who was the Local Government Service Commission Chairman be made public cause we are sure of our employments.
“My brother, how can someone who has been earning salary for years and have been promoted and transfered in some occasions suddenly become a ghost worker.
“We believe that someone somewhere is not telling the Governor the gospel truth and so we plead with the Governor to look in properly to our case and allow justice prevail”, the workers stated.
The workers who were visibly angry brandishing their documents to prove their legitimacy said they were planning a peaceful protest so that the listening Governor can come to their aide.
