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The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Delta State Council, has assured civil servants in the state that it is working round hard to ensure that the anomalies in payment experienced in the June 2018 salaries do not recur.
In an emergency State Executive Council (SEC) meeting held Tuesday (17/7/2018) at the Labour House in Asaba, the State Chairman of the NLC, Comrade Jonathan Jemirieyigbe, said that series of meetings had been held with the state head of service and the accountant general to address the payment anomalies.
Comrade Jemirieyigbe disclosed that the problem emanated because of a disconnect between the computer centre and the Hakabella consultant, saying the certain information was withheld from the consultant and that led to some people receiving less and other more than their salary.
According to the NLC Chairman, some workers who hitherto were not being paid special duty allowance (SDA) were erroneously paid to makethem receive more than their salary while others were short paid in the process leading to their underpayment.
He sympathized with workers that were short paid, noting the inconveniences it had caused them and assured that such anomalies would be addressed in the July 2018 salary to an appreciable extent.
The chairman said he did not instruct workers that were short paid to go to Hakabella to fill forms in order for their cases to be addressed, saying labour was well abreast of the appropriate government agencies to go in such circumstance, noting that the Offices of the Head of Service and Accountant General were already handling the issue.
On fears expressed by some workers that the state government was about taking the responsibility of paying salary from workers to a consultant, the NLC chairman said that labour’s primary responsibility was to ensure that workers were paid as and when due.
“If the government has convincing evidence to prove that fraud was being perpetrated in the payment of salary through the inclusion of ghost names into the payroll and decided to bring in a consultant to check it, why should labour have problem with that”, the chairman queried, adding, “Labour will not fight the selfish interest of some dubious workers trying to incite their colleagues that the glory of their labour will now go to the consultant. Workers do not have any glory to protect as long as they are being paid their salaries. Whatever jobs you are assigned to do as a worker do it because that is why you are being paid your salary.”
The chairman called on labour representatives in the various MDAs to ensure that their account sections furnish the Office of the Head of Service with updates on promotion arrears, saying he had implicit confidence in the assurances of the state governor to clear all backlogs of salary arrears.
He implored workers to be patient on the promotion arrears adding that even though he had no doubt that it would be paid, he said that it would not affect all workers at the same time but in phases.
On the implementation of the Contributory Health Scheme and complaints that it was failing in meeting the health needs of workers, Comrade Jemirieyigbe called on the NLC Monitoring Committee to investigate the claims with a view to ensuring that workers were not shortchanged in the scheme.
The chairman announced that instruction from the national secretariat of the NLC mandated every state council to set up local councils of the NLC at the various local government areas.
He also announced that the instruction directed the state councils to set up a political arm of the NLC at the local government level, comprising of veterans of the various affiliates unions of the NLC.