By Benjamin Nworie in Abakaliki
The Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi has promised to pay the N30,000 new national minimum wage to the state civil servants with a promise to continue to work for their welfare in the years ahead.
Addressing workers Wednesday during the Workers Day celebration at the Pa Ngele Oruta Township Stadium, Umahi commended the civil servants for their role in his emergence as governor for the second term in the March 9 governorship election.
Umahi said: “In my presentation, I did make promise that our state shall not be the first and will shall not be last to pay the new national minimum wage. So, I therefore approve the new minimum wage for our civil servants in the state.”
The governor further said his administration placed high premium on
workers’ welfare, adding that: “In my administration, all I have done in the
last four years was to address your challenges and develop workable
blueprint to address your problems and I am happy to say that within the years under review, tremendous milestones have been achieved in terms of prioritising your welfare.
“Without boring you with the obvious, it has been my opinion that workers in this country are not yet at their best in terms of being taken care of, but with various programmes I initiated in my administration, I can beat my chest to say that we were not oblivious of these challenges staring you in the face but we have initiated measures to ameliorate your sufferings.
“My administration has increased workers’ salaries by five per cent in the
face of the dwindling federal allocation accruable to states with Ebonyi at the lowest ebb. Beyond the increment in workers’ salaries, we have given workers over N4 billion loan to go into agriculture to help them as no amount of wage increase can address the conflicting priorities of workers in this country.”
Earlier in his address, the Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ebonyi State, Leo Nkah, commended the governor for approving necessary welafare allowances and appealed for speedy implementation of the new Pension Act of 2014.
He said civil servants in the state are mostly grateful to the governor for listening to their pleas and thanked him for the provision of N4 billion for civil servants to help them go into
agriculture to sustain their living.
