Osun civil servants reject one-month salary payment
State of Osun Civil servants on Wednesday rejected the one-month salary paid by the state government out of the seven months owed them.
A cross section of the civil servants told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Osogbo that they were not expecting one-month salary but the entire arrears owed them by the state government.
Mrs Ronke Adekola, a civil servant, said it was ridiculous for the state government to pay only one month out of the seven months it owed.
“It would have been better if the government did not pay at all than to pay one month,” she said.
Another civil servant who spoke on condition of anonymity said the one-month salary paid by the government showed that it was insensitive to the plight of the workers.
He said it was absurd for the government to be paying December 2014 salary in July 2015 without any hope of when the other arrears would be paid.
Another civil servant, Mr Olusegun Olaniyi, said it would be very funny for the government to expect the workers to be happy with the one-month salary.
Olaniyi said the salary was not even enough to clear the accumulated interest on the loan he collected.
He said that it was painful that only one-month salary was paid out of seven months.
Gov. Rauf Aregbesola had on June 14 promised to pay the workers’ salaries before the end of June.
The governor made the promise in a statement from his media aide, Mr Semiu Okanlawon, which was silent on the number of months to be paid.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress in the state, Mr Jacob Adekomi, had told a news conference on Tuesday that the governor had approved the payment of December 2014 salary to the workers.
Adekomi added that the governor also approved the payment of the 30 per cent balance of November salaries of some workers who were yet to be paid in full.
He, however, said that workers would not suspend their strike in spite of the payment.
The civil servants embarked on an indefinite strike on May 26 to press home their demands. (NAN)
