Workers defy Government directive

chika ebuzor

January 20, 2016 5:41 AM

Workers in 19 parastatal agencies and departments in Imo reported for duties, defying the directive by the state government that they should to handover and stop work

Workers in 19 parastatal agencies and departments in Imo reported for duties, defying the directive by the state government that they should to handover and stop work.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Governor Rochas Okorocha had, in a statement on Sunday, announced the sack of staffers of the organisations.

When NAN correspondent visited offices of some of the organisations in Owerri on Tuesday, some of the workers were seen at their duty posts attending to visitors, while some were discussing the development in groups.

The offices visited were Imo Water Corporation near Standard, Sports Council, Owerri, and Imo State Environmental Transformation Commission.

Others were Imo Marketing Company located at Old Secretariat, Orlu Road Owerri, and Agricultural Development Programme (ADP), near NOA Office on Okigwe Road.

Some of the workers told NAN that they had yet to be served with any disengagement letters.

"I was issued employment letter by the state government when I was engaged by the state as a staff of ADP and it will be administratively wrong for me to stop work because of what somebody said he heard on radio.

"If the person who made the announcement is informed of the workings of the civil service, he should issue a sack letter to me and until that is done I will continue to report for duties,’’Mr Uzochukwu Chukwuka, said.

Mrs Amaka Adigwe, a staff of Imo marketing company, described the action was fraudulent.

"When I heard the radio announcement that we have been sacked, I knew that some people were hatching fraud because you cannot sack a worker mid-month without paying his or her salary.

"So, for the state government to claim that our salaries have been stopped since Jan. 4 when we have worked from the beginning of the month till Jan.17 without committing any punishable offence shows those behind the plot had failed," Adigwe said.

Meanwhile, Mr Austin Chilakpu, the state Chairman of Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), in a reaction, told NAN that the leadership of the union was shocked to hear the radio announcement.

"Thank God all of you were around last Wednesday when Gov. Okorocha told the NLC president that it was falsehood that the government was planning to sack Imo workers.

"We have looked at the way and manner the announcement was made and have directed workers not to obey such a directive because you cannot sack government workers without observing the rules.’’

He said that all the listed organisations were government establishments founded by law.

chika ebuzor