Kogi: Union cries out over non-payment

THE Kogi State Council Chairman of the Trade Union Congress , Comrade Ranti Ojo has appealed to the state government to source funds and pay all manners of areas of salaries owed members of the union.

Ojo made the appeal in Lokoja on Thursday during the occasion of the 4th triennial delegates conference of the congress.

According to him, aside from the staggering arrears of salary, TUC members are grossly owed leave bonus, annual increment and implementation of promotion spanning over five years.

According to him “The state government is still owing us 30 percent of August to December 2017 and other arrears which is the minimum is three months.

“Aside from salaries, there are other legitimate entitlements of workers that have remained outstanding over the years. Leave bonus, for instance, has not been paid since the inception of Governor Yahaya Bello’s led administration.

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” We are hereby using this occasion to passionately appeal to the governor to make a difference in this regard by paying the entire arrears of leave bonus that has remained unpaid”

The TUC Chairman who commended the state government for releasing the sum of 200 million naira for the payment of backlog of gratuities to workers, lamented that the union was not comfortable with the mode of disbursement which the government adopted.

“A situation where a worker whose gratuity supposed to be 7 million naira is given only one hundred thousand naira makes a caricature of the payment exercise.

“We hereby suggest that the government should make the payment meaningful by paying fully and in batches to the beneficiaries using the principle of First-in -First-out (FIFO) ” he advised.

In his speech, the former head of media and programme TUC, Comrade Onyeka Chris, charged union leaders to always bear in mind that survival of any organisation solely depends on the commitment of the leaders.

He, therefore, urged the new executives who are mostly returning unopposed to be up and doing in the interest of their members who depend on them for adequate welfare.

At the end of the conference, the Chairman Ranti Ojo and other members of the executive were re-elected to serve another term of three years.