My eyes on government – Unpaid government house correspondents’ stipend

Is Uzodimma still verifying their data?

We have heard from the Imo Governor Hope Uzodimma many times that his government does not owe anybody. Last week he made similar statement when he had a meeting with heads of government ministries and agencies. Contrary to his claims journalists covering him in the government house are lamenting that they have only received just one month stipends since the governor assumed office.

Some of the government house correspondents as they are popularly called lament the lies of the governor but lack courage to confront neither the governor nor his media aides. When two of them spoke to yours sincerely, they regretted that the man has no recognition for the media and does whatever he likes irrespective of whatever anybody feels about it. According to them, this is the worst; no governor denies correspondents that here.

On the efforts of the governor’s media aide to ameliorate their situation, one had this to say. “We notice a tussle between the Chief Press Secretary and the New Media handler who are at logger heads with each other fighting for supremacy.” And from the other, “do we need to remind them to fight for their colleagues. Truth is the governor is not media friendly. While he was governor, how many times have you seen address media or parley journalists.”

Government House correspondents are supposed to be receiving 10k stipend monthly for covering the governor. Mocking the governor, one of the journalists quipped, “It is possible they are still verifying our data to fish out ghost correspondents as the governor used to say.” Sadly, the list of the of number of persons owed by our government has continued to elongate in spite of persistent denials that the government is not owing anybody except 500 workers keeping accounts with Micro Finance banks.