WORKERS under the aegis of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria [ASCSN] has called off the protest the Union embarked upon on Monday pending the return of the President and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah.
The Union on Monday protested what they called impunity, high handedness and nepotism on part of the Minister in running the affairs of the Investment Ministry.
ASCSN had asked President Muhammadu Buhari to sack Enelamah “for unleashing impunity, corrupt practices, high handedness, injustice and nepotism on staff of the Ministry since assuming office in 2015.”
TribuneOnline spoke to a Senior staff of the Ministry who spoke under the condition of anonymity disclosed that “the Minister is not in town so they (Union) have decided to wait. We are told he is on official trip with the President, we will wait until they are back into the country.”
He said before the Union embarked on the protest, “all efforts to get the Ministry to listen to the complaints of the workers proved abortive.”
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Stating one of the allegations, he noted that, “since the last two Salah, even though money was made available to the Ministry for staff allowances, the Minister refused to pay workers.”
The Ministry’s Chapter of ASCN had on Monday alleged that the Minister has “unfortunately succeeded in duplicating, wasting resources through the creation of the Nigerian Office of Trade Negotiation [NOTN] based on false memo or advice to the Federal Executive Council [FEC].”
”Today, the Minister has also killed the Trade Department and rendering Commercial and Trade Officers redundant.”
The Chairman of the Association ,Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment Unit, Comrade Okonkwo Onwuyah while stating conditions for their to discontinue told Journalists in Abuja that ‘We are also demanding that all outstanding payments since 2014 till date be prioritized on first come first serve basis for payments, training and welfare needs of workers must be concluded before the end of December 2018, services of consultants be withdrawn with immediate effect, timely conduct of promotion exercise should be observed, all cases of conversion and upgrading pending in the ministry and with Head of Service [HOS] and FSCS should be worked on to ease off delays..
He lamented that “it is also worrisome that the Minister has equally allowed impunity and maladministration to continue in Human Resources Department, desperate attempts to privatize Calabar and Kano Free Trade Zones under the management of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority [NEPZA] and locating a private company —Nigeria Special Economic Zones Company Ltd [NSEZCO] using public funds to take over the functions of NEPZA” concluding that urgent steps should be taken by government to arrest the ills in Ministry.