The Abia state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has called on governor Alex Otti to come clean on the issue of salaries of staff of ABSU, and other workers in the State by ensuring that the outstanding salaries are cleared
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The call is a sequel to a press statement issued by the Abia State University branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, refuting claims by the Governor, Alex Otti that he has cleared salaries of workers of the state-owned university.
The PDP in a release signed by Its Vice Chairman and the Acting Publicity Secretary Abraham Amah noted with concerns that ASUU had in their reaction warned the governor to stop politicizing the issue of salary payment to its members who are under heavy financial burdens.
According to ASUU, the true position is that the salaries of ABSU workers are not up to date, and have been paid haphazardly, even as many are yet to receive many months salaries. Worse is the unexplained deductions ranging between N8,000 and N53,000 that were made at source from the accounts of the few that have received their salaries.
The Opposition party made it clear that the rebuttal by ASUU did not come to us as a surprise, alleging that the current Abia state government has the penchant to dish out lies to deceive the people.
The Abia PDP expressed concern that the welfare of lecturers and other workers of an institution that produces the workforce for Abia and surrounding States is treated with such levity and insensitivity.
“It has become typical of the Alex Otti administration to push out half-truths and unfounded lies just to defend its directionless policies and inability to fulfill the promises it made to the people during the campaigns. At every turn, the present government has shown itself as an enemy of workers. Few days after he assumed office, he sacked all the permanent secretaries, more than 15,000 workers and embarked on endless verifications that have left many workers unpaid for more than one year,” the party claimed.
The Abia PDP further observed that the case of pensioners is worse as government claimed to have cleared their 9 or 10 years salaries, after allegedly deceiving the management of the Abia State branch of the National Union of Pensioners, NUP into signing off their backlog as a condition to continue to receive their monthly stipends; a situation that has pitched the Governor against Abia Pensioners.
The opposition party further alleged that the case of the staff of Abia State University Teaching Hospital, ABSUTH, Aba, is more pathetic, claiming that many of them, especially consultants resorted to seeking greener pastures elsewhere.
While insisting that the receivables from the Federation Allocation Account Committee, FAAC, is more than enough to clear the outstanding salaries and do much more for the good people of Abia State, the PDP challenged Abia state government to desist from using what it called “inexplicable projects” to siphon public funds in the midst of the sufferings of Abia Workers.
