Ogun workers seek halt to contributory pension scheme

• Ekiti, Ondo employees resort to prayers over pay
• Enugu retirees decry rising arrears
• Kano NLC urges defraying of eight-month benefits

Citing alleged poor handling on the part of government, workers in the employ of the Ogun State government have asked their employer to stop forthwith deductions from their salaries for the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

They alleged that the deducted funds were not being remitted to the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).

State NLC chairman, Comrade Akeem Ambali, decried that the prevailing financial challenge had prevented government from ensuring continuous remittance of the deductions.

Also yesterday, workers in Ekiti and Ondo States resorted to prayers over their outstanding salaries.

The civil servants, who obviously were gloomy about the four-month pay owed them by the state government and the death of the six doctors from the state in a road accident last week in Kaduna last Sunday, sought the face of God regarding their predicament.

In an address by the state NLC boss, Ade Adesanmi, they urged Governor Ayodele Fayose to review workers’ monthly wage bill which currently stands at N2.6 billion, urging government to defray their gross salaries.

In Akure, the Ondo State capital, the employees while blaming government for their plight, said they were first observing prayers before taking the next line of action

The state chairman of the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council (JNC), Sunday Adeleye and his Trade Union Congress counterpart, Foladoye Ekundayo, yesterday gave the indication during a church service to mark the celebration at the state capital.

However, in Enugu State, retirees decried the piling up of their pensions and gratuities, asking the state government to expeditiously offset them.

This comes on the heels of an assurance by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to, always, work in concert with organised labour in satisfactorily resolving issues relating to workers.

The state NLC chairman, Virginus Nwobodo, claimed that gratuity was last paid to former local council workers in 2002.

In the same vein, the Kano State chapter of the workers’ union has demanded the immediate settlement of the eight-month outstanding pay of the over 3,991 employees in the state primary healthcare board as well as the secondary school management board.

State NLC chairman, Kabiru Ado Minjibir, also sought reinstatement of some health and local council workers who were “unjustifiably” retired just as he appealed for the re-absorbing of about 43 contract staff with the state Refuse Management and Sanitation Board into the mainstream civil service having put in 15 years.