Benue: labour issues ortom 72 hour ultimatum over bailout,rejects workers screening, demands immediate unconditional payment.

From Aviashima Toom, makurdi.

The organised labour in Benue State has lamented the untold hardship being visited on workers in the state over the delays in payment of their salary arrears and has issued a 72 hour ultimatum to the Ortom administration to pay workers outstanding wages from the bailout fund recently accessed from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or risk a disruption of “industrial harmony and tranquility.”

In a joint communique issued by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Joint Pensions and Salaries Negotiation Committee (JPSNC) today in Makurdi, labour appreciated the state government for accessing the bailout funds to settle salary arrears to workers, but rejected the idea of screening the workers as a prerequisite to the payments, stressing that “the said “bailout” funds was assessed based on the payment vouchers of the months in arrears; therefore, the fund is the representation of the financial implication of salary arrears owed Benue workers.”

The communique which was co-signed by comrades Godwin Anya, Ordue T. and Philip Ter. Nongo as leaders of NLC, TUC and JPSNC respectively, also passed a vote of no confidence on the contractor handling the biometric staff verification exercise in the state, whom they claimed is incompetent having handled a similar exercise during the immediate past administration without any tangible results, therefore, and called for termination of his contract.

The unionist further appealed to the Benue State House of Assembly to suspend its intended screening of workers in the state pending formal consultations between both parties, while appealing to the suffering workers to remain calm and peaceful as organised labour will ensure that their interests are adequately protected.