Organised labour in Borno State has appealed to Governor Babagana Umara Zulum to intervene in the implementation of promotion benefits in which there were omission of some beneficiaries during the last payment exercise.
Speaking yesterday at the Ramat Square, Maiduguri, the venue of this year’s Workers Day celebration, the state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC ), Comrade Yusuf Inuwa, expressed workers grievances, which according to him, included the difficulties they and other citizens encounter in paying their electricity bills due to the new metering system in the state.
He said the biodata capturing exercise has alienated a lot of civil servants and pensioners in the state, resulting in staggered payment of pensions and gratuity in the state.
Inuwa called on the state government to explore the possibility of assisting workers in the payment of electricity bills generated by the new metres, complaining that the metres are consuming a lot of units, resulting in high cost of electricity per household.
He called on the state House of Assembly to hasten the passage of the request for the extension of workers’ years of service from 35 to 40 years of service and from 60 years to 65 years of birth, appealing to the state governor to assent to it for immediate implementation as soon as it is passed.
He decried the high increase in tuition fees by the University of Maiduguri from N30,000 to N100,000.
“We want the state government to look into the issue of workers still receiving N4,000 as their monthly take-home,” Babayo Hamman, the state’s Trade Union Congress chairman, representing the NLC national chairman, pleaded at the workers’ parade.
Representing Governor Babagana Umara Zulum, the deputy governor, Umar Kadafur, promised that the state government would address their grievances.
