AEPB Begins Indefinite Strike

The staff of Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) yesterday embarked on indefinite strike over the non-implementation of a new salary structure.

The workers who barricaded the agency’s headquarters in a protest vowed never to return to work until their needs are met, saying that the new salary structure had been approved in 2019, but was yet to be implemented by the management.

Speaking on behalf of the agency, an assistant director in the agency, Barr. Udeme Umanah who spoke to journalists during the protest explained that the AEPB is an autonomous agency established under the AEPB Acts of 1997, but that the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) wants it to be a department under the administration.

“The Act provided that the Board employs staff and others can be by secondment, and the Director of AEPB is determined by the FCT Minister. Despite the work functions that are very sensitive and hazardous, the National Salary and Income Wages Commission recommends CONHESS salary structures to AEPB. AEPB staff is grouped into two, the environment.

“The presidential committee approved the same salary structures as the National Salary and Income Wages Commission which was forwarded to FCTA in 2021. They commence the CONHESS salary structures from January 2020. The Health, Agriculture, Social Development Secretariat, and FCT-IRS earn different salary structures if they have had any trouble.

“We gave the administration 21 days’ notice to implement the salary structures for AEPB, we gave them seven days and finally, we gave them three days’ notice. It was after the expiration of the three days’ notice that the Minister called us, and agreed to implement the salary structures and pleaded that we should not go on strike and that we should give them two weeks to sort it out.

“By last Friday, our two weeks’ notice expired and by Monday we have embarked on an indefinite strike and we are not ready to go back until they implement our salary structures,” he said.