Forfeiting our salary arrears is like committing suicide –Workers

■ Govt must pay to the last kobo –NLC, TUC vow

By Enyeribe Ejiogu with reports from Tony John (Port Harcourt), Rose Ejem­bi (Makurdi), Ebije Noah (Kaduna), Wole Balogun (Ekiti), Femi Folarunmi (Yenagoa) and Paul Osuyi (Asaba)

THE RECENT suggestion that workers should forgo their unpaid salary arrears as a way of helping the affected state governments cushion the effects of the steep drop in statu­tory allocations from the Federation Account has been dismissed as a satanic proposal from the pit of hell.

Reacting to the suggestion, which he literal­ly considered as an evil thought, Chairman of the Benue State Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Godwin Anya, told Sunday Sun reporter in Makurdi: “Those people saying that don’t know God. They need to be laid on the cross for saying that. What have they gained after politicians have stolen so much money from our commonwealth? Those say­ing that don’t have the fear of God.

“The government should abandon every­thing and focus on paying salary. They should see payment of salary arrears as a major proj­ect. After they have paid salaries, they can now focus on other infrastructural projects.

“For crying out loud, many workers have died waiting for their salaries to be paid while many others are heavily indebted already. Will the people the workers are owing debts also agree to forfeit what they are being owed? How can they now turn round and say work­ers should forfeit their salary arrears?”

Sounding a similar note, the Secretary of the Delta State council of NLC, Innocent Ofoye­andi was more poignant in his opinion, declar­ing that workers in the state particularly local government staff would not forfeit the backlog of salary arrears owed them. He said forfeiture of such salary arrears was tantamount to the workers committing suicide.

In the particular case of Delta State, as Sun­day Sun gathered, other categories of civil servants in the state have received their May 2016 salary except local government workers who are being owed over 10 months’ salary arrears.

According to the NLC scribe, the union would do everything within its legitimate power to resist any attempt to cajole workers to forfeit the backlog of salary arrears on sym­pathetic ground based on the present precari­ous economic situation of the country.

Ofoyeandi wondered why workers would forfeit their meager salaries when elected and appointed government officials had never contemplated donating their salaries and fat allowances to enhance the economy.

“We are managing the situation here in Del­ta, it has not got to that level of forfeiting sal­aries as a result of the present economic situa­tion. Forfeiture of salaries means that workers should go and commit suicide. What is the es­sence of working without salary?” he queried.

“The issues are simple and straight forward: the general financial crunch is affecting every sector but we must work together to cushion the effect on everybody whether as civil ser­vants or elected or appointed government of­ficial.

“The solution to the financial crisis should not be done to the detriment of the workforce. How many governors, senators and other big time politicians have forfeited their salaries or allowances to charity?

“If they are considering the receipts from the federal allocation and internally generated revenue, we as workers, will cooperate but not to the extent of forfeiting arrears of salaries that we are being owed,” he added.

He said the union would continue to engage government to ensure that workers in the state were paid as and when due, while efforts had also been intensified to prevail on the state government to intervene so that workers at the local government level would be paid some months of the arrears owed to them.

In Kaduna State, workers in the civil ser­vice poured scorn on the suggestion, emphat­ically affirming that they would not give it second thought let alone participating in such forfeiture of backlog of salaries because the government found itself unable to pay.

“We don’t have the same situation in Kadu­na, but quite a good number of workers have not been paid, and government has not made any pronouncement yet,” said Mr Ango Ada­mu, the NLC state chairman.

However, the state government said the de­lay in paying salaries was due to ongoing ver­ification exercise to weed ghost workers from the civil service system, adding that workers already verified had been paid salaries up to April 2016.

Govt must pay workers to the last kobo

In Rivers State, the Nigeria Labour Con­gress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress of Ni­geria (TUC), vowed that the government must pay the backlog of salaries of their members, even to the last kobo.

The organised labour movement stated this in Port Harcourt, stressing that payment of the arrears was non-negotiable, and that no gov­ernor should think of telling civil servants to forfeit backlog of salaries owed them.

Chairman of TUC in the state, Chika Onuegbu, described the suggestion as “laugh­able,” adding that whoever made that state­ment or suggestion “needs psychiatric exam­ination.”

Similarly, the factional chairman of NLC in the state, Prince Addah Williams, said gover­nors did not have any reason whatsoever, to owe workers because they (governors) receive monthly allocation from Federal Government and, also, generate internal revenue, no matter how low.

Williams said the problem was that politi­cians considered themselves more important and decided to spend or appropriate the funds on projects or issues that were more important to them, than workers who were the engine room of the government.

He vowed: “Governors must pay to the last kobo all the arrears owed the workers. Why must the workers be compelled to make the sacrifice? Do the workers enjoy the privileges and rights of the politicians?”

It is noteworthy that the Rivers State Gov­ernment has not said it would not pay workers because of paucity of funds. The government explained that the workers had not yet been paid because of the delay in completing re-val­idation of workers biometric data.

For Ekiti State workers, it is a case of ‘no retreat, no surrender’ in the battle to get the government to pay the salary arrears as the workers maintain that it is impossible for the forfeit the unpaid arrears.

When asked to react to a report that the government might ask workers to forfeit sal­ary arrears as a sacrifice for the nation, Ekiti State Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Con­gress (NLC), Mr. Ade Adesanmi said: “That’s not possible. There is no way, for instance, we would have worked for six months and gov­ernment would ask us to forfeit our salaries. In as much as the politicians cannot do that ,we too, the civil servants cannot do it, because we actually worked for it. And so, I don’t think there would be anybody anywhere or any gov­ernment anywhere who would bring the idea of we forfeiting our arrears of salaries. It is not possible.”

Insisting that under no circumstance would workers compromise on this issue, he ex­plained: “I don’t even see it as a proposal at all, it might just be a rumour because we have not heard anyone discussing it at any forum. If it was a proposal ,I think government would have brought it to our notice but that has not happened.”

On the way forward regarding the face-off between Ekiti workers and the government, Adesanmi said: “At the initial stage we re­quested for five months payment, from there we shifted our grounds to three months. We are expecting the government to also shift ground from one month initial proposal to ei­ther three or two months.

If that is done, we can find a way round the issue, because the issue of salary payment is very important to our wellbeing. Even if the government would be paying three or two months now, eight percent of our members cannot even access a kobo out of it on payment because we are owing huge debts that are far more than three or two months payment.”

In the face of the reality of the drastically reduced statutory allocations, the Nigeria La­bour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Bayelsa took the middle road of accepting 50 per cent of monthly sal­aries for the interim period as a stop gap mea­sure pending when the financial position of the state government would improve.

The compromise, the union stressed, did not amount to a downward review of salaries. The NLC Chairman, John Bipre Ndiomu and his TUC counterpart, Tari Dounana, have al­layed the fears of workers that the backlog of salaries would not be paid.

Sunday Sun learnt that during a meeting held with government representatives, where the agreement was reached on the 50 per cent salary payment, the two unions extracted a commitment from the government to pay the backlog of salaries as soon as the financial sit­uation of the state improved.

Not wanting to be outsmarted by the gov­ernment, the communiqué issued after the meeting specifically stated that the unions would not need to contact government before embarking on strike in the event of the gov­ernment reneging on its promise to pay the backlog of salaries.