The Taraba State governor-elect, Col. Agbu Kefas (rtd), and his boss, Governor Darius Ishaku, have clashed over the state’s civil servants’ salary arrears.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that this comes less than a week after the state’s governorship election.
Agbu promised to clear all salary arrears owed by Governor Ishaku’s administration in a statement to newsmen on Monday.
The governor-elect promised to pay the backlog of arrears within 100 days of taking office on May 29, 2023.
However, in a swift response, Governor Ishaku stated that his administration owed the civil servants no salary arrears to warrant Agbu’s promise.
He made the announcement in a statement signed by Bala Dan-Habu, his special adviser on media and publicity.
Ishaku slammed the governor-elect for promising to clear salary arrears, pointing out that his administration had paid civil salaries on time.
He stated that the veil accusation is false and that the clarification was necessary as a result of the press statement issued by the incoming administration.
Dan-Habu said;
The outgoing administration of Governor Darius Ishaku is not owing any group of workers in the state monthly salaries and, therefore, will not be leaving behind any burden arising from unpaid emoluments for the in-coming administration.
This clarification became necessary following a press statement issued recently on behalf of the in-coming administration of Lt-Col Agbu Kefas (rtd), the governor-elect which contained a promise to pay salary arrears in its first 100 days.
This veiled accusation is wrong and unnecessary. The Ishaku administration never toyed with the welfare of workers in its eight years of stewardship in the state.
It had consistently paid their salaries since it assumed office in 2015, most of the time before the end of every month.
We find this so-called promise to pay outstanding salary arrears made on behalf of the Governor-Elect not only misplaced but also misleading.
It is also surprising coming from an in-coming administration widely known and regarded to be an offspring of the the present government of His Excellency, Arc Darius Ishaku, We think we needed to set the records straight, hence this rebuttal.
When contacted by Leadership, the state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Peter Jediel, confirmed that local government employees were owed six months’ pay.
The NLC boss also revealed that the Ishaku-led government had not paid teachers for four months.
State workers have received their salaries to date but local government workers are owed for six months, primary school teachers four months, while over 1,000 pensioners are not in the a payroll, he stated.
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