Kogi: TUC urges Bello to clear arrears of salaries

The Kogi state chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Ranti Ojo, has appealed to the state governor, Yahaya Bello, to source for funds and pay all arrears of salaries owed members of the union.

Ojo, who made the appeal in Lokoja on Thursday during the occasion of the 4th triennial delegates conference of the congress, said aside the staggering arrears of salary, TUC members were grossly owed leave bonus, annual increment and implementation of promotion spanning over five years.

“The state government is still owing us 30 percent of August to December 2017 and other arrears of which the minimum is three months.

“Aside from salaries, there are other legitimate entitlements of workers that have remained outstanding over the years. Leave bonus for instance has not been paid since the inception of Governor Yahaya Bello-led administration.

“We are hereby using this occasion to passionately appeal to the governor to make a difference in this regard by paying the entire arrears of leave bonus that has remained unpaid”, he said.

The TUC chairman who commended the state government for releasing the sum of N200million for the payment of backlog of gratuities, lamented that the union was not comfortable with the mode of disbursement which the government adopted.

“A situation where a worker whose gratuity supposed to be N7million is given only N100,000 makes a caricature of the payment exercise.

“We hereby suggest that the government should make the payment meaningful by paying fully and in batches to the beneficiaries using the principle of First-in-First-out (FIFO)”, he advised.

In his speech, the former head of media and programme at TUC, Comrade Onyeka Chris, charged union leaders to always bear in mind that survival of any organisation solely depend on the commitment of the leaders.

He therefore urged the new executives who were mostly return unopposed to be up and doing in the interest of their members who depend on them for adequate welfare.

At the end of the conference, the state Chairman of TUC, Ranti Ojo and other members of the executive were re-elected to serve another term of three years.