The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and other trade unions in Imo State have promised a fight to finish with the outgoing Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, if he does not pay the March 2019 salaries of workers in the state.
The unions issued a seven-day ultimatum for the governor to pay the workers in a Wednesday joint statement.
NLC’s Austin Chilakpu, Trade Union Congress (TUC)’s Nkim Tangban and Joint Public Service Negotiating Council’s Aloy Iwuanyanwu jointly signed the statement in the state capital Owerri.
Recall that Okorocha recently boasted that his administration was not owing workers in the state, and challenged any worker being owed to come forward.
But the unions queried why Imo workers had not been paid for March 2019, ten days after the month ended, when it was evident that the allocation for the month had entered into the state government’s coffers.
“Your excellecy sir, the leadership of labour in the state has made frantic efforts to see that salaries of Imo workers for the month of March 2019 is paid through the office of the Accountant General and that has not yielded any result,” the statement read.
“All the reasons given as to why the salaries are yet to be paid are watery and as such, not acceptable to Imo workers.
Apart from this, they added that, “LGA allocations for the 27 local government areas in the state, 13 per cent derivation fund, ecological fund, internally generated revenue and many more were collected by the government. Therefore, the continuous delay in the payment of workers salaries becomes unjustified.”
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