Face-off between Bauchi NLC, Govt over impending retrenchment, other issues

From: Ruth Yarnap, Bauchi

Bauchi State Chapter of the Labour Congress, NLC, has given the Bauchi State Government a one week ultimatum to resolve pending workers’ issues and other entitlements in the state or face indefinite strike action.

The State Chairman of NLC, Comrade Danjuma Saleh, while giving the ultimatum on Monday during a press conference, held at the Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, in Bauchi said that the union may take a line of action that will not guarantee industrial harmony in the state.

According to him, the union after a meeting of the State Administrative Council(SAC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress in the state, resolved to draw the attention of the government to the myriads of complaints received by the state council on the indiscriminate payment of workers’ monthly salaries.

Other actions of the state government include the removal of large number of workers from the payroll, cutting of huge portion of some categories of staff allowances for the month of June and July 2020, especially those in the health sector.

Comrade Saleh added that several efforts were made officially for the authorities to restore the salaries of omitted staff and allowances, some of which are over six months, but all fell on deaf ears.

The state government, the NLC chairman explained, simply waved the issue aside simply as payroll cleansing, revealing that over ten thousand workers could not access their July salaries, which the union alleged, is an attempt to retrench workers in the state.

He said that it is mind boggling that workers from some important MDAs such as the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Bauchi Radio Corporation (BRC), Specialist Hospital, Hospital Management Board, Ministry of Environment, State Primary Health Care Development Agency, House of Assembly were denied June and July 2020 salaries while 42 staff from Toro Local government Authority and 74 PHC staff from Bogoro were denied April 2020 salaries.

According to him, it is painful and upsetting that when governments are distributing palliative across the country to cushion the effect of COVID 19 pandemic, that some people are being denied their legitimate earnings in the state.

He said, “the meeting reviewed the activities of DYNATECH SYSTEM SOLUTION consulting firm since their engagement to handle the issues of salaries and payroll in the state and concludes that they lack the capacity to undertake the job and we have lost confidence in their operations.We are fully aware that their job could be effectively handled by trained staff within the state service.It therefore amounts to waste of resources to engage another unqualified firm to handle same issue while experienced workers are made to remain redundant”.

He stated that the non-remittance of constitutional deductions of unions as at when due is an attempt to weaken organised labour and can no longer be accepted, adding that third party funds such as the National Housing Fund Contribution and Voluntary Contribution Schemes by Unions should be remitted along with salaries since they are deducted from workers’ salaries with their consent.

The State Government in its reaction to the issue through the Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Umaru Sanda Adamu, said that some salaries were not paid because there were several fraudulent activities that the administration was trying to address.

According to him, “some people have been benefitting from these fraudulent acts and would want to see it end. We will not for once deny any worker his or her legitimate salary without any reason. Whosoever is collecting salary illegally are the ones complaining and we are trying to block such leakages”.

The Commissioner debunked the allegation that the state government was trying to reduce the number of workers in the state, saying however that the administration has embarked on sanitizing the pay and nominal rolls of government which has identified certain anomalies.

He added, “Salaries of some workers were not paid or were delayed because there were several issues with the payroll and nominal roll. For instance, some workers do no not have date of birth, some have changed places of work but were still on active service and so on, but still receive salaries.
“Some have changed their places of placement, some were having issues with missing vital data such as BVN, date of appointment, some have deceased accounts, some have absconded, some were collecting pension but not on active service”.

He added, “Those number of people wherever we find such anomalies, .we stop their salary until genuine reason are given, Some were unscrupulous civil servants were collecting several salaries”.