Unpaid 13 months salary arrears: Abia health workers picket EO, DoF offices

Angry workers of the Abia State Health Management Board on Thursday picketed the Offices of the Executive Officer and Director of Finance over unpaid 13 months salary arrears.

The Chairman of the HMB Medical and Health Workers Union, Chidinma Wokoma, spoke with newsmen on this.

He said the action was to protest against management’s failure to pay the July salary of some workers.

Wokoma said: “We are picking their offices today and they shall remain shut until they pay the salaries.”

According to her, HMB owes workers 13 months arrears of salaries.

“The HMB owes the workers eight months in 2021 and five months this year,” she said.

The chairperson said that the union’s protest had lingered for about one month without any positive response from the management.

She said that following their agitations, the state government introduced biometric verification of workers in all the stations in the 17 Local Government Areas.

Wokoma said: “Government brought the biometric machines and began the verification on December 7. Unfortunately, some of the machines malfunctioned in Ohafia, Okeikpe and Ututu.

“To make up for the lapse, management conducted a separate exercise to verify those who were not captured. However, while some workers were paid their July salary, others were not.”

Wokoma further said that the union met the EO, Alison Obinna, who promised that the affected people would be paid on Wednesday after the Christmas holiday.

She said: “These people waited throughout Wednesday and their salary was not paid and the CEO did not come to office.”

The union leader faulted management’s decision to hing the payment of July salary on the biometric verification done in December.

She said: “The normal thing is to use the biometric verification to pay salaries going forward from December.

“Having certified that the affected workers are not ghost workers, management ought to pay them along with their counterparts.”

Wokoma, however, said that the union had earlier issued a 14-day ultimatum that lapsed on Wednesday and later a fresh seven-day ultimatum, beginning from December 24.

She said that the union would declare an indefinite strike on January 14, 2023, if the state government fails to pay five months of the unpaid 13 month arrears.

She said: “We cannot continue to watch our workers suffer indefinitely. The workers are owed 13 months arrears of salaries and they went for the Yuletide celebration without salary.

“We are being treated as second hand citizens. It is unacceptable to us that this festive period, workers are denied their salaries to fend for themselves and their families.

“You can imagine the level of deprivation, hunger and starvation our people are passing through. I consider it inhuman for our workers to go home in December without July salary. And they are likely going home for the New Year celebration without salary.”

Wokoma described the treatment allegedly being met to Abia HMB workers as “inhuman”.

She added: “What is our offense? My heart bleeds to see that workers in other ministries, who did not do biometric verification, have been paid their December salaries. It is painful to leave people to die of hunger and starvation after they have worked for the state.

“It high time the state government began to treat HMB workers like other civil servants.”

Reacting to the development in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, the EO said: “I don’t have any comment to make. I do not know what she (Wokoma) is talking about. If they picket my office, they have also opened it.”

Agency report