The Special Adviser on General Duties to Governor Bassey Edet Otu of Cross River State, Barrister Ekpenyong Akiba, has said that the governor in line with his People-First agenda remains highly committed and passionate about the welfare of workers and pensioners in the state.
Akiba stated this in an interview while reacting to the reported protest by some civil servants over delay in the payment of their January salaries.
According to the special adviser, the protest which he said was needless and didn’t have the backing of the labour bodies in the state, was carried out by a few persons to misrepresent the fact and misinform the public.
Noting that majority of the civil servants in the state have received their salaries up to date, Akiba maintained that only those whose status have not been authenticated from the ongoing verification and revalidation exercise were yet to be paid.
“I would say that the protest is a misrepresentation of fact. The ongoing verification exercise and the revalidation of civil servants across board has been part of what His Excellency, Governor Bassey Otu has initiated to reform the state civil service and ensure that we can clean the system and block all leakages that had previously existed.
“Many people had their names duplicated in different local governments and some retirees still have their names in the regular payroll. His Excellency has been concerned about the payment of pensioners. He has been very passionate about that, believing that it amounts to man inhumanity to man for one to put in 35 years of service and don’t enjoy the fruit of that hard labour. So because of that he decided to take up the pension interest in terms of ensuring that our pensioners are cared for and their outstandings are cleared and those whose gratuities have been difficult to verify and pay are also done.
“Now if you looked at the wage bill, for him to achieve that it will be also unreasonable for us to have ghost workers or retirees that their names are still in government payrolls whereas their names ought to have left the regular payroll to the pension payroll. That now led to the need for a total revalidation, screening and authentication of who is still alive, who has retired and who has his name in more than one MDAs or local governments. Some people are up to 60 but they don’t want to go and they continued to do affidavit to adjust their age,” Akiba revealed.
Continuing, he said: “You will agree with me that it’s a very tasking process. And for you to achieve the result you want, you need time. So because of that some of the civil servants in the state have not been paid. But majority of majority of the civil servants in the state have received their salaries up to date, up to January. Those are the ones that we have been able to authenticate their status. Now, those that their status are yet to be verified are the ones that have not been paid.”
Otu’s special adviser on general duties explained that the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and other labour organisations in the state were in full support of what the Cross River government was doing to entrench accountability and transparency in the system.
“The state representatives of NLC have been in communication with the Head of Service and the Secretary to the State Government that has been midwifing the process. They have been on the same page.
“So even when these other civil servants that we saw in the video had to protest they did not protest through the organised structure. The protest was a lopsided protest occasioned by misrepresentation of fact like I said earlier and may be misinformation and impatience to the tedious process. You know times are hard. You will not blame them in totality. However, to get things done properly people need to sacrifice.
“So the whole thing is just about the governor’s desire and determination to reform the civil service in the state in order to ensure efficiency, productivity and maximum output and also create employment opportunities for others, particularly the unemployed youths in the state.”
