Purported Half Salary is Sallah Gift, Kogi Labour Unions Demand Payment of July Salary in Full

Comrades, it is no longer news that government has made good her threat of reducing our salaries to 50% and 40% for state workers and local government workers/teachers respectively.

That the organised labour derived recurrent wage bill of N3.1 Billion from the government’s presentation to the organised labour during our meetings on 29th and 30th of August 2017. We wish to bring to your notice that government in response to our correspondence on this matter has now brought down the monthly wage bill of the state from the earlier N3.1 billion to N2.6 billion.

Comrades, if the N2.6 billion being quoted now by government as July 2017 wage bill is sacrosanct, and if the monthly allocation that accrued to the State from the Federation Account without the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) shared in the month of August 2017 stands as N2.6 billion as presented to the organised labour during the said meeting on this matter, we then wish to ask; why the percentage payment of salary even when government could further access some funds from its IGR for other government expenditure(s)?

We wish to assure all workers that the organised labour still maintain her stance on “NO PERCENTAGE/HALF SALARY AS PROPOSED BY GOVERNMENT”. Hence,  the current percentage payment of 50% salary to state workers and 40% to local government workers and teachers is considered as Sallah gift as earlier stated and we urge you to see it as such.

In view of all the above, we urge government to pay July 2017 salary in full on or before Tuesday, 12th September 2017 in order to further sustain the industrial peace and harmony in the state.

Come to think of it our dear comrades, what can the government tell us happened to allocation received in the month of June 2017 without mentioning the previous months?

We wish to further urge you to continue to remain calm, law abiding and prayerful as we pledge to continue to remain on our feet for your sake. Await further directive please!