Fayose begs teachers over unpaid five months salary

Edo government denies responsibility for workers’ woes

Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose has pleaded with teachers in both primary and secondary schools over five months unpaid salaries and allowances.The governor, who blamed government inability to meet its financial obligations to the teachers on economy recession the country is passing through said he was not oblivion of their plights.

Fayose met with the teachers at Oshuntokun House, inside Government House.In spite of the initial confrontation and display of anger occasioned by non-payment of five months salaries, which had unleashed hardship on the workers at large, Fayose was able to reach a compromise on how all the benefits will be paid in due course with the teachers.

Speaking on the challenges confronting the teachers, Mrs E. A. Olaoye and Mr Adetunji Akinyemi, spoke on behalf of the public primary and secondary schools’ teachers respectively.

Part of their demands was: Payment of March to July 2016 salaries,Payment of 2014 September salary to primary school teachers, recognition of degree holders in primary schools, promotion of teachers beginning from 2010, 2016 salary increase, Core Subjects

Allowance for primary school teachers.Others include: stoppage of deductions on loan repayment and other sources, over-deduction of salaries of members from Accountant General’s office, payment of duty post allowance, payment of Leave bonus for 2016, stoppage of arbitrary cooperative deductions, robust car and housing loans, renovation of schools and effective inter-cadre policy for teachers.

The teachers said though they were not oblivious of the financial difficulty being experienced across the 36 states of the federation, reiterating that they must be given adequate recognition within the limit of the revenues accruing to the state.

However, the major roads linking the Benin City centre; Akpakpava, Mission Road, Sapele Road, Airport Road, Sokponba Road, Forestry and others were locked yesterday as thousands of members of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees in Edo State to demand their salaries arrears ranging from five to 18 months.

The NULGE members dressed in all black attires also claimed that a middle aged man who they said is a staff of the Esan North East, Uromi slumped and died immediately.
The workers threatened to vote against the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the coming September 10 governorship election.

The National President of NULGE Ibrahim Khaleel, said “We are here in Edo state today to show solidarity with you. We are aware that you have been owned between 7 -18 months of salaries by the Edo state government. What we are saying is that your salaries must be paid and the government must stop using our money to pay SUBEB staff.

“He should start paying his counterpart funding for primary school teachers salaries and pay the 10 per cent accruable to Local Governments from the allocation due to the state“We are ready to vote out this government if it does not listen to our plight and pay what is due to us. We will vote out this government if the need arises should he fail to pay our salaries.

Also the state chairman, Comrade Young Ilemikhena urged the workers not to be discouraged adding that victory will be achieved at the end of the struggle. “I call on all of us here to observe a minute silence for our comrade from Esan north east local government area who slumped and died this morning while we were gathered for this struggle.”

In his reaction, the state commissioner for information and orientation, Prince Kassim Afegbua told The Guardian “We are not responsible for the payment of local government staff. We also do not touch local government money.. what we have done was to intervene by way of insisting that the right financial discipline applies. We are aware that the PDP slaughtered the nation’s economy for which the nation is sti;ll groping from. We hope things improve in order that states and local governments are able to cope”.