As workers in the global community celebrate this year’s May Day, the chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Osun State chapter, Comrade Jacob Babatunde Adekomi on Friday lamented that workers and pensioners in the state were suffering due to heavy debt profile and a backlog of unpaid salary arrears.
In his May Day message forwarded to Tribune Online in Osogbo, he said “this is not the best of times for workers in Osun and the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic also compounded the problems.
According to Adekomi, “some of the difficulties we have been facing for the past years in the state include 15 months of unpaid salary and pension arrears left by the immediate past administration which amounted to sixty billion naira (N60bn) for both state and local government workers.
“Also, the non-monetization of promotion of workers between 2012 and 2018 as released to workers after the promotion exercise carried out in 2018 and the workers that retired on contributory pension scheme since 2016 had not been able to access their pension which they toiled for, and that totalled over twenty billion naira N20B) for both accrual and contribution,” he said.
Adekomi said workers in active service faced a future that looks bleak as their monthly pension deductions were not fully remitted to their Pension Fund Managers (PFAs), lamenting that the year 2012 gratuity of pensioners of about N6 billion still remain outstanding in the year 2020.
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He also noted that non-payment of four months outstanding deductions from the salaries of workers have negatively affected their remittances to their various Cooperative Societies, Bank Loan repayment, Union dues.
Adekomi expressed regret that while workers in other states of the federation were already enjoying the new minimum wage, Osun State is yet to conclude on the mode of implementation, saying “the committee that was set up to midwife the payment of new minimum wage was about concluding its assignment when the problem of Covid-19 pandemic broke out.”
He, however, commended the workers for their doggedness, perseverance, endurance and longsuffering in the face of these unfavourable circumstances.
Adekomi averred that “we in the leadership position are pained as you are pained and I will like to inform you all that we are doing everything humanly possible to ameliorate this ugly situation. We are always engaging the present administration on how to tackle these myriads of problems as a way of moving forward.”
He called on the state government to put machinery in motion to urgently address the problems facing workers in the state so that the harmonious relationship between the state Government and workers and the pensioners will not be jeopardised and lead to industrial disharmony and unrest.
Adekomi expressed appreciation to Governor Gboyega Oyetola for the prompt payment of full salaries and pensions since the inception of his administration, just as he implored him to continue to sustain and improve upon this, saying it is a radical departure from the past.
He said “the colossal debt profile of the State which is presently put conservatively at over Two Hundred and Seventy Billion Naira (N270bn) is frightening and mind-boggling and the mode of the deduction is very unfriendly. The federal government is therefore implored to have a second look at the mode of deduction which stands at over N2.4billion on a monthly basis so that the state will not go into bankruptcy.”
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