- Yet To Implement #30,000 Minimum Wage, Silent On #70,000 Approved By FG
The Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma’s refusal to implement the #30,000 minimum wage that was formerly in most states and the #70,000 recently approved by the Federal government, when other states including Lagos, Anambra, Enugu, Cross Rivers, Rivers, Abia, among other have not only approved it or higher amounts but have also set up committees to harmonize and tidy up issues that will facilitate its payment with effect from November, has elicited negative reactions from concerned citizens, and groups, including the Peoples Democratic Party PDP that accused the Governor of siphoning over #116 billion from workers’ salaries.
The party in a release dated November 26, 2024 and signed by its State Publicity Secretary, Lancelot Obiaku, said, it has uncovered a fraudulent scheme through which the Uzodinma administration in the state diverted the sum of #116 billion from workers’ salaries in the last four years and eight months.
According to the release, “the conduit pipes are the government’s questionable refusal to implement the old #30,000 national minimum wage, non payment of salaries, allowances and other benefits commensurate with the recent promotions purported to have been carried out by the state government”.
“It is on record that Imo civil servants began to complain about the non payment of salaries as soon as Uzodinma assumed office in January 2020.
For some, their salaries were inexplicably slashed. The previous administration had initiated the payment of #30,000 minimum wage but Uzodinma came in and reversed it in addition to sacking some workers unjustly”.
“When the issue generated ripples, the Governor was quick to say that he was sanitizatizing the workforce to block leakages arising from ghost workers and that his administration was already saving #2bn monthly from that. But the Governor and the State Government are yet to account for the money they saved uptill date.
Imo workers are today dying as a result of hunger, lack and deprivation, in addition to being worse than their counterparts in other states. Our findings reveal that the humongous sum has found its way into the private pockets of government officials.
Evidence from all the ministries, departments and agencies, show that Levels 8 and 10 workers who are mostly graduates still earn just a fraction above #40,000 monthly. In other words, graduate workers in Imo State do not earn up to #50,000. No ministry—be it Agriculture, Works, Commerce and Industry, Finance, Education, etc, is left out, and the workers are groaning in pain. Local government workers are also included. Long-serving security guards, messengers, and gardeners earn between #27,000 and #30,000, while new intakes earn less.
At the state’s institutions of higher learning, Level 12 and 13 lecturers, who have worked for many years earn about #120,000 a month. A professor at the Imo State University (IMSU) cannot boast of earning #300,000 a month as salary, compared to their counterparts in other parts of the country who earn #500,000 and above. It is astonishing that this is happening in Imo State.
With Level 8 and 10 graduate workers earning less than #50,000 in Imo State, it clearly shows that the Uzodimma administration has not implemented the #30,000 minimum wage, and there is no plan in sight either to comply with the #70,000 national minimum wage approved by the Supreme Court. Yet, the State Governor went about initially saying that Imo was paying N40,000 as minimum wage. He has recently positioned to extend the deception, by claiming that he is making plans to implement the #70,000 minimum wage. But we know these are all lies.”
Continuing, the release said,“the Governor has deprived workers of promotion benefits. In 2022 and 2023, the State government announced promotions for workers. However, till date, no Imo worker has received an increment of even a kobo to his or her salary. The yearly additions to salaries, which usually happens in July, have not occurred even once since Uzodimma assumed office. This is not just wicked but also criminal.
For five years, the government has not paid allowances to workers. For example, Lecturers in the Medical Faculty of the Imo State University have not received their Call Duty and Hazard allowances since the inception of the present administration.
It is the height of wickedness and insensitivity that Uzodimma and his cohorts, knowing that at 43 dollars per month, Nigeria’s minimum wage is way lower than that of Rwanda, South Africa, Togo and Benin Republic that have $188, $249 $87 and $86 respectively. Besides. seeing that Nigeria’s inflation rate has made prices of food and other goods and services four times higher in the last two years, ultimately eroding the purchasing power of Nigerian workers, still refuses to fully implement the previous #30,000 agreed on in 2019, not to mention implementing the new national minimum wage of #70,000, he has, on top of that, deprived workers of other benefits.
The Uzodimma-led government has continued to prove that it is a curse to Imo State and her people”.
