Salary deduction: Kano NLC gives gov’t 7-day to revert action

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Kano State has issued a seven-day ultimatum to the state government to refund and stop what it described as “illegal deduction” from civil servants’ salaries or face industrial action.

The decision of the Congress was disclosed on Friday by its chairman, Kabiru Ado Minjibir, after an emergency meeting of the State Executive Council.

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He insisted that failure of the government to stop the “unexplained” deduction before the end of its ultimatum on April 6, 2021, workers would embark on a three-day warning strike from the midnight of April 7.

Minjibir expressed disappointment over the action of the state government, which he described as a clear violation of the agreement on the new minimum wage law of 2019.

At the meeting, they also rejected in its entirety the “illegal and illogical” deduction from workers’ salaries and pensioners allowance.

The demands included to see the government account book; the total workforce of public servants (both state and local government); actual total wage bills for state workers (both state and local governments); the number of political office holders (both state and local governments), and the total wage bill for political office holders in the state and local governments.

Other demands are the shortfall of salary payment for January and March 2021; November and December 2020 state deduction; November and December 2020, and January 2021 state and local governments’ pensions deductions.

Minjibir said the refund of deductions from March 2021 salaries should be with a time frame within three months-April to June 2021-and payment of pending eight months’ salary arrears as well as the balance of two months 50 percent deduction, which should be paid within six months from May to November 2021, “and the deduction must cut across all workers, including political office holders and all permanent secretaries.”