“In as much as we have appreciated the Governor for reverting to the new minimum wage, it is very important we know what he used these monies for”, Deltans Lives Matter, a pressure group has insisted.
In a release Saturday jointly signed by the group’s Global Coordinator, Hon. Christian Moses Abeh, the Deputy Global Coordinator, Mr. Gabriel Mamuzo and the Europe Coordinator, Citizen Miracle Ifeanyi Ogor, the group maintained that the flimsy excuse put forward by the governor was a global pandemic.
“It is on record that the Covid-19 pandemic which the Governor used as excuse for salary reduction also affected other states in the South-South and South-East region of the Country, but Delta state was the first state to slash 25% of workers salaries.
“If states like Edo, Cross River, Adamawa and Anambra did not tamper with their workers salaries why Delta state that receives the highest monthly allocation do so? Despite the global pandemic our monthly allocation for these months increased instead of reducing, so why did the Governor ordered for salary reduction?
“Some of the State officials are quick to telling us that the state workforce is almost fifty thousand employees as if we are blind to know it is a big lie from the pit of hell. How can you have about fifty thousand employees when there are no more people from grade level 01 to 03? While few people are in 04 to 06. Where are all these people and which office accommodation is housing them?
“Who is responsible for the monthly payment of some PDP leaders at the wards level in the 25 LGAs? We challenge the Governor to publish the list of all the civil servants in the state with their LGAs of origin, ranks, salaries and imprests if he is sure he is telling us the truth. Mere telling us that our workforce is three times that of Edo and other states is not enough to believe that there are no underhand deals in the state wage bills.
“Kindly publish things done with the deducted monies from workers salaries please. How many political appointees do you have as a Governor and kindly publish their names, designations, individual salary per month, individual imprest per month and LGA of origin please. If truly the global pandemic known as Covid-19 was the reason why the Governor slashed innocent workers salaries, why did he made almost one hundred appointments that will cost the State huge amount of money within that same period?
“We make bold to say that the screening of workers by a Lagos based company known as Heckerbella was a charade & full of sharp practices. How can we claim to be screening workers and appointees when senior officials of the administration from Government House are coming with huge files containing names of workers for clearance and the whole names were cleared within minutes in my presence in 2016.
The group stressed that there was need for sincerity and accountability at this stage of our statehood in order to move the state forward.
