By Haruna Usman,Birnin Kebbi
The Nigeria labour Congress Kebbi State council has described as lamentable,schocking and rediculous the attitudes of Kebbi government on the issue of new minimum wage consequential adjustment and it’s blatant refusal to pay the 2019 leave grants to senior civil servants and 2020 to both category of workers in the state.
The organised labour in the state under the leadership of comrade Umar Halidu Alhassan in a press conference held in Birnin Kebbi said,the state governor Senator Atiku Bagudu hurriedly before the main committee arrive at agreed amount added seven thousand naira to some class of civil servants as minimum wage while the junior staff had their salaries pushed up to thirty thousand based on understanding that as soon as the amount is agreed upon,the state will make adjustments on those yet to get full minimum wage,the union noted with surprised how the state government began foot-dragging on the issue of committee that will fine tune how the adjustment will be made,the state labour chief added that it took them months of pressure to get the government to set up a committee on the consequential adjustment which when it was set up sat only once till date.
The organised labour alleged that, government kebbi refused to meet part of it’s collective bargain based on the memoradum of understanding entered into with the government to among other things implement fully the minimum wage,pay arrears of yearly increments to workers as civil servants who retire within this period will not enjoy their gratuities computation with the current minimum wage as no table backed by law has been made available by the government.
On the coronovirus pandemic,the organised labour decreid the government’s refusal to give assistance to civil servants in the state even as many organisations enjoyed it”we are hereby warning the government to meet all the demands of civil servants including the accumulated retirees gratuities and other entilments of the state workers without further delay”Umar said.
In a related development,the state NLC chairman was also sworn in as state chairman agricultural and allied workers union( NUAAE) he was inaugrated along side his excos after a short delegates conference that was held at the NUT house in Birnin Kebbi,he was sworn in before the representative of the national chairman of the association Alhaji Gwaram,in his short acceptance speech comrade Halidu further urged the government to pay leave grants to senior cadre of civil servants in the state.
In similar development the NUAAE chairman called on government to go into partnership with the Union since Kebbi is widely known as agricultural hub saying with expertise of his members the state agric scheme will flourish to bring about bumper harvest in the state and scale up it’s local revenue
