By Our Reporter
A group of Kogi State Civil servants has accused organised Labour of extending the industrial action embarked upon two weeks ago in spite of government meeting the terms of the agreement.
Group leader, Cyril Ukwenya, said the government has agreed that all workers on compulsory leave will be recalled and also publish dates and schedules of payments of all outstanding salaries and leave bonuses.
He also disclosed that the government has resolved that no genuine worker will be laid off as those who complain of omission will be attended to directly by the Office of the Governor.
“Salaries of LGA teachers and pensioners will be returned to SUBEB and the Bureau of Local government pensions,” Ukwenya said, and urged civil servants to disregard Labour leaders.
“During the last administration of Idris Wada, the Ministry of Science and Technology proposed to supply laptops to all the teachers in the state, so as to boost their teaching skills but the Labour leaders, getting to know about this, saw it as an opportunity to make money on all workers and eventually hijacked the idea by convincing the governor who gave them approval to go ahead.
“These said laptops were given to workers at the rate of more than 300 per cent of the market price.”
Ukwenya also disclosed that monthly union dues deducted from workers’ salaries for Labour’s account is about N50 million.
“The present Labour leaders have been in office for about seven to eight years now. If we go by the above exposition, this means the union dues of workers deducted to labour is approximately N4.6 billion.
“Is there anything on the ground to show for this N4.6 billion they have collected from the hungry and heavily indebted workers of Kogi State?
“It is an open secret that every Labour leader is richer than a serving commissioner.”
Ukwenya said the bailout fund is a loan facility sourced from Zenith Bank and Access Bank, using the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a guarantor.
“It is not transferable and cannot yield interest as maliciously purported by the Labour leaders. Money cannot be withdrawn from the holding banks for any purpose other than crediting the salary accounts of workers.”
