The Managing Director and the Chief Executive officer of News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr. Buki Ponle has stressed the need for government to improve the condition of services and enhanced allowances for its staff.
This according to him is because the agency deserves more than the cursory attention among its peers within parastatal agencies under the Ministry of Information and Culture.
He started this at a workshop in Lagos, organised by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission as part of efforts to improve salaries and allowances for NAN workers.
He said on assumption of office as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer on September 1, 2020, noted the inadequate salaries and allowance of workers when compared to the task of work as the nation’s purveyor of information.
”Apart from the challenge of inadequate infrastructure facing the agency, one other deplorable finding was the poor salaries and inadequate allowances of staff when compared to the volume and nature of work being undertaken by our workers.
”Consequently, one of the first initiatives of management was to reinvigorate the machinery to fashion out the processes of putting in place a new condition of service and enhanced allowances for our committed colleagues.
“To do this, we had recourse to engage the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, the statutory body mandated to lead the process, and this exercise we are holding today is a testimonial to the sustained partnership between our management and the commission to address this lingering poor pay pack of our members of staff,” he said.
The Managing Director, represented by the agency’s Director of Finance and Accounts, Oladele Ojo, said in spite of the inadequate salaries and running cost, workers in the agency had been diligently and faithfully executing the mandate set out for it in its Act.
He revealed that in 2020 alone, “a whopping 61,319 stories were transmitted to the agency’s clients.
“With a monthly average of about 5,000 stories, 700 pictures, 100 videos and 50 audio clips transmitted to a diverse clientele made up of about 300 public and corporate subscribers, NAN has consistently remained the medium of choice,” he added.
