The Joint Public Service Negotiating Council (Trade Union Side) Enugu State Council has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to release the approved bailout fund to Enugu State Government to enable the State offset the arrears of salaries for non-permanent staff, pension and subventions for government parastatals, boards and agencies.
The council equally commended the Enugu State Governor, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi for his administration’s consultative approach in the preparation of the 2016 budget and efforts to sanitize some errant government agencies in the state in order to reposition them for efficient and effective service delivery.
In a statement jointly signed by its Chairman and Secretary, Comrade Igbokwe Chukwuma Igbokwe and Comrade Theo Obasiani, the council expressed worries that “the prolonged delay since the announcement of the approval of the bailout fund is affecting the social and economic lives of the workers”.
It regretted that the non-release of the fund has brought untoward hardship to the workers as “creditors kept harassing, insulting and threatening them on the grounds that they have paid”.
According to the statement, “the council strongly condemns the non-release of the fund to Enugu State Government and calls for immediate release of the fund to the State to enable her discharge her statutory
responsibilities to the workers. The continuous devaluation of the naira,
galloping inflation which weakened the purchasing power of the National
currency has made the non-release of the fund counter-productive.”
On the sanitization efforts, the Council charged the state government to apply all necessary measures “to recover every dime stolen from the public treasury and prosecute the culprits”, assuring the government of workers maximum support towards the recovery exercise.
