JUST IN: 2,000 health workers drag Ondo governor to court over salary reduction, demotion

Over 2,000 health workers in Ondo State civil service have dragged the state governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu to the National Industrial Court in Akure, for alleged demotion and deduction of their salaries.

Other defendants in the suit are the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and the Ondo State Local Government Service Commission.

The over 2,000 workers from the 18 local government areas of the state alleged that the defendants had been shortchanging them since 2013.

The workers, employed by the Ondo State Local Government Service Commission as health workers, were said to have been tactically demoted since 2013 as they were being paid as administration officers, which had led to their salaries being reduced.

In the suit number: NICN/AK/66/2018, filed by their counsel, Mr. Tolu Babaleye, the claimants asked the court to correct the purported abnormalities.

However, at the court proceeding on Monday, the counsel to the defendants, Mr. T.O Coker raised preliminary objection against the suit, saying the claimants had not served them the pre-action notice.

But Babaleye argued that the defendants had been served pre-action notice twice in 2017 and 2018, saying the law establishing Ondo State Local Government Service Commission provided for 30 days for the pre-action notice to be served but they had served them (defendants) over a year.

In her ruling, Justice Oyejoju Oyewumi dismissed the preliminary objection of the defendant and held that the claimants served the pre-action notice to the defendants and that the case was properly constituted.

The judge declared that the full hearing of the case would commence on July 1 and 2, 2019.

Speaking with our correspondent after the proceeding, the claimants’ counsel, Babaleye said the aggrieved health workers “were recruited as healthy workers and all their promotions were done for them as health workers but when they want to pay them salaries, they pay them as administrative officers.

“They have been complaining about this matter since 2013, they have written series of letters to the parties concerned but it is as if nobody is ready to listen to them.

“From the information at our disposal, they prepared the vouchers for them as health workers and ended up paying them as admin officers. So we want to know where the differential in the vouchers is going since 2013.”