Judex Okoro, Calabar
Cross River State Commissioner for Education, Godwin Etta, has ordered workers owed 18 months salaries to go home and stay if they cannot exercise patience anymore.
Etta stated this while addressing workers of the Examinations Results Centre (ERC) of the state Ministry of Education who protested in Calabar against 18 months salaries’ arrears.
The workers claimed they were first engaged as ad hoc staff in 2015, but were absorbed as permanent staff into the state civil service payrolls through formal appointment letters in November 2017. The commissioner, who described the workers as ingrates and unreasonable, said Governor Ben Ayade has done a lot to pay workers monthly without fail, even with paltry monthly federal allocation of N2 billion.
“These people were engaged as temporary staff and their stipends paid regularly. The governor was kind enough to direct their absorption into the state workforce which process we are still on. They are ungrateful. If they won’t have patience any more, they are free to leave,” he said.
Spokesperson for the workers, Mr. Johnson Agbor, said they had met several times with Ettah, over their plight where they had appealed for payment of the salaries backlog.
He said: “I can tell you that we have our formal letters of appointment as permanent staff. We are civil servants under the state ministry of education since November 2017. We have not received salaries for 18 months.”