Workers in Sardauna Local Government Area of Taraba State have appealed to Governor Darius Ishaku to intervene and facilitate the payment of the arrears of their salaries.
The workers made the appeal in a statement issued, on Thursday, in Jalingo, and jointly signed by Messrs Hamza Abubakar and George Kataps, the Chairman and Vice Chairman, Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), in the council.
According to them, the issue of staff salary in the local governments has become a nightmare in the past one year in the state.
The workers said that the situation in Sardauna Local Government council was even worse, without any justifiable reasons.
“I have listened to Governor Ishaku many times in his address on the issue of salaries, where he will always say he has cleared all outstanding payments.
“I have always been in doubt; but with the recent turn of events, I know that the problem of the governor is his loyalists who are not telling him the truth.
“The truth is that from May 2016 when biometrics started, some workers have not received their salaries till now.
“And those without any problem at all, their last payment was in February 2017, but we in Sardauna last received salaries in January,” the statement quoted Abubakar as saying.
It noted that 80 per cent of the electorate in the state were working in the local government councils and urged Ishaku to urgently look into the issue to avert labour crisis.
According to the statement, the general hardship due to economic recession, coupled with the nonpayment of salaries, has become unbearable for the workers.
In a reaction, Alhaji Bello Yero, the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, explained that the biometric exercise, which had caused the delay, was meant to correct sharp practices in the system.
Yero said that the exercise would soon be completed and assured that genuine workers would get their entitlements. (NAN)