Abia denies sack of 500 polytechnic workers 

Abia state has denied sacking 500 workers at the state polytechnic. The State Information Commissioner, John Kalu, who stated this via a statement debunked the reports that more than 500 workers of the Polytechnic were sacked or disengaged on Friday January 12th, 2018 saying that as at Saturday 13th January 2018, no worker had been disengaged as a result of the management’s ongoing operational reviews.

He said: “We are aware that the management of the institution has been investigating sundry issues bothering on presentation of forged or fake certificates, falsification of age, overstaffing of some units as well as the employment of unqualified teaching and non teaching staff.”He also explained that state government fully endorsed the on-going reform in the institution, which he said is aimed at checking corrupt practices.

“Abia state government supports any fair, legal and equitable measure taken by the management of the institution to sanitize the institution and re-position it to be able to deliver better quality graduates, pay workers as at when due and wean itself of operational dependence on government financial support for survival,” he said.

Kalu recalled that governor Okezie Ikpeazu liquidated a N2b loan the institution took from commercial rates after its Board and management pledged that if relieved of the loan burden and its associated high interest rate, the school will begin to run smoothly with internally generated revenue from students school fees and other sources. 

Commissioner further said that even after removing the burden of the debilitating N2 billion loan from the institution, government still continued to support the payment of its workers wages with monthly subventions of N90m in addition to school fees collected by the institution.

He said that government did this despite the fact that as a parastatal established under the law, Abiapoly  does not remit any portion of its internally generated revenue to the state government and the government is not responsible for the payment of the workers of the institution, but instead pays subventions to the school to cushion revenue inflow shortfalls

Citing the Abia State University Uturu, also owned by the state, Commissioner Kalu said: “It is instructive to note that following the sanitization of Abia State University Uturu by its current management, the institution is up to date with workers salary even when subventions from the state is delayed.”

He stated that government expects the operational review by the management of Abiapoly to ultimately lead to regular payment of workers wages and excellence in academic activities.