By Amos Okioma
The senior staff of the Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas, Ekowe in Bayelsa State have taken to the streets to protest non payment of two months salary.
The protesters, who converged on the platform of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics, lamented that they were being paid only 80 percent of their salaries since 2014.
Besides, they appealed to
the Presidency, the Federal Ministries of Education, Labour and Finance to come to their aid.
The Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics (SSANIP), Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas Ekowe, accompanied by some national officers of the union defied the rains to register their grievances at the liaison office of the institution in Yenagoa.
Rising from an emergency congress, they pointed out that workers had been on a salary shortfall of 80 percent since 2014.
They pointed out that despite the approval of N200 million out of the over N497 million by the Presidential Initiative for Continuous Audit to capture 16 out of the outstanding number of months, they were yet to receive salary payments especially for the months of September and October this year.
Chairman of SSANIP in the institution, Mr. Charles Willabo, said that workers were undergoing hardships owing to the situation.
Another staff who would not want his name mentioned appealed to the Federal Government and the office of the Accountant General to investigate the matter.
The National President, Mr. Philip Ogusipe, who was represented by a National Trustee of the association, Mr. Godwin Ikhide, called on the relevant authorities to ensure that workers were not shortchanged.
The South South Zonal Secretary of SSANIP, Mr. Mike Ighoseme, said that it was unacceptable that money meant for payment of staff salaries were being diverted and misappropriated.
The protesters said that previous resolutions from meetings with management of the institution on reversal of query to union officials, recall of sacked workers, reinstatement of the former Deputy Registrar and others have yet to be implemented.
The school management had in different messages to the union early October this year assured of having authority to incur payment to make up for overdraft of salary, appealing for patience.
The association said that it later received another message from Management saying money had been raised for October salary, promising to pay last Friday, which has yet to be paid, while that of September would be rolled over to subsequent months.
