• Say salary increase as parting gift is good enough
The struggle for enhanced work­ers salary has been on in Enugu State since 2011. It dates back to the days of the minimum wage struggle. In-fact, the case of Enugu was actually made very popular by the visit of the two national presidents of the two labour unions: the Nigeria La­bour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC). Since then workers in the state have been pushing for an upward review of their salaries.
However, the days of waiting may have been over as the organised labour in the state is believed to have reached an agreement with the government. Labour leaders in the state believe that the new salary structure will come into effect as early as October. A labour leader told our reporter that the “Enugu State workers have suffered so much; we have supported this government; we have not sabotaged the efforts of the government. Yet, we are one of the least paid states in this country and let us not forget that Enugu State is seen as one that should provide leadership for the South East. As the headquarters of the zone, we believe that what we earn should be commensurate to what the Federal and other states are earning. So we are expecting that bef
ore the end of this month this salary review will be approved and used for the payment of October salary.
Comrade Igbokwe Chukwuma Igbokwe, state chairman, TUC, Enugu State chapter, in an exclusive chat with Daily Sun noted that the new salary structure should be a way Governor Sullivan Chime should tell Enugu workers ‘thank you for supporting my government; thank you for remaining calm all these years even with the meager salary we are paying.’ Because we wouldn’t want a situation where, towards the end of this administration we will start having issues with the government. With the much he has done in the service, we appreciate him; we appreciate him for prompt payment of salaries; we appreciate him for promotions and payment of leave allowances but we are saying that we deserve an increase from this governor before he leaves office and the time for it is now.”
Comrade Igbokwe commended the efforts of the governor in ensuring consistency in payment of salaries. He however agreed with the wider view that what was paid to workers in Enugu was not enough compared to what other workers were taking in other states or when compared to the salary of a civil servant on Grade Level16 and a political appointee. “While a permanent secretary earns about N400, 000 as salary the nearest person to him which is a director earns less than N100, 000. These are some of the issues causing disaffection in the system and one that is killing the service.
So while praising the governor for prompt payment of salaries workers, we are particularly asking for an upward review. And we are urging the governor to effect this payment this October because workers are agitating; workers are restive and we wouldn’t want to start having issues with government at this time the administration is winding down.”  Workers are interested in who becomes governor in 2015.”
To press home the desire of the workers for better welfare, the labour leaders in Enugu have expressed interest in who emerges governor of the state in 2015. The TUC boss recalled that 10 years ago, workers suffered immensely. He said workers were not sure when their salaries would come. “Salaries would be paid; people went to the bank only to be told that the cheque had bounced; we suffered those things; some people died; some were disengaged; people were retrenched. But now we are back and this present government has given us coverage to a level, even though what it is giving is not enough. But we are saying that in Enugu State now we are sure that our salaries come on or before the 30th of every month. You are sure that your leave allowance comes on the month you put in your leave without going to beg anybody to raise voucher for you. You are sure that when your promotion is due it is done.
“Now, with this standard set already we are interested in knowing that whoever is coming should understand what is happening. Before his emergence, Governor Chime was the state Attorney-General. So he worked closely with workers; he understood the plight of workers; so when he came in he didn’t need anybody to tell him to entrench a new system where salaries were regularly paid. “So we are interested that the person who will succeed him should maintain this standard. We know those candidates workers will pray that they don’t emerge as governor and there are those we will ask God to make governor.
“There are people if nominated to be governor we will storm the square and embark on one-month, dry fasting to ensure they don’t emerge. So we will start early to sensitise our workers; we have the number and will play a role in deciding who comes in.”
He noted that currently the union had “gone a long way in commencing the construction of Enugu workers’ estate; a site has been provided and government has given infrastructural guarantee and a loan of N2 billion has been offered in principle by the Federal Mortgage Bank. And we have even shortlisted the beneficiaries; we have about 636 beneficiaries who are civil servants only. But the problem now is that the Federal Mortgage Bank has not really given its approval; the board has not given the approval for the loan and during the launching of the Elim Estate, the minister gave an approval in principle. So what we are expecting now is that the board will ratify that approval and funds released. So what we expect now is that the Federal Mortgage Bank should speed up the process and then release this loan so that workers will benefit.”
Speaking on the contributory pension scheme in the state, he noted that “it is a scheme that for a long time even at the state level has been very controversial. But when you look around you see that other states are keying in and Enugu State will not be left out. It’s a new thing and for us the scheme is not the problem but making it to work. So when the law was passed, the state set up a committee in which all the stakeholders were represented. The committee is drawing up a process for the commencement of the scheme to ensure that the scheme works properly. We are learning from where other states made their mistakes and where they had issues. You know primarily in a contributory pension scheme, we have operators; we have pension fund administrators who manage the scheme and that is where some people are skeptical.
“Also the committee had a two-day screening and interview of all the PFA’s in the state and at the end of the day shortlisted the number we felt that could run the scheme in the state and sent the report to the Head of Service. We expect that the report should be with the governor by now for his final approval. Because we have also said that the problem we have is that we wanted to be sure that in being part of this process, things like selecting those that will run this pension scheme should not be subjected to political patronage. It should not be done on friendship or relationship bases knowing well enough that workers in Enugu State had resisted this scheme for a long time before they agreed to go into it. Now we have to be careful that the mistakes that were made in other state will not be made here.”