Abia State Government has confirmed receiving N10.6 billion from the Federal Government, being the state’s share of the Paris Club refund.
Commissioner of Finance, Mr. Obinna Oriaku who confirmed this in an interview with our Correspondent in Umuahia said the 14- day ultimatum given to the state government by the organised labour to defray the arrears of salary and pensions was unnecessary.
According to him, the Governor had already directed that half of the money be used to pay the backlog of salary and pension arrears of workers and retirees, hence the threat by the workers was uncalled for.
Abia workers had Thursday evening, issued a 14-day ultimatum to Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu to clear their salary arrears with the largesse or incur their wrath.
The organized labour also mandated the governor to use the largess to defray the backlog of gratuities of retirees, claiming that no pensioner in the state was paid gratuities in the last 16 years.
Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Uchenna Obigwe who gave the ultimatum on behalf of the workers urged the governor to quickly inaugurate a committee comprising the organized labour and other stakeholder to discuss modalities for disbursing the largess.
The NLC boss decried the condition of workers and pensioners in the state describing their situation as very pathetic.
Accusing NLC of playing politics with the threat, the Commissioner said he had personally called the NLC boss to inform him of the fund, adding that he had also told him that by Monday December 19 the stakeholders would be meeting on modalities to disburse the funds.
He wondered why Obigwe would be behaving as if he just discovered about the funds when he was rather acting on a privileged information.
Oriaku said that despite a directive by the Federal Government to pay workers salary with the funds, Gov. Ikpeazu on his own had already made up his mind to accommodate workers’ interest with the largess.
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