Workers oflmo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, ISOPADEC, have demanded for the full payment of their salaries from the Imo State Government.
The workers said that they are owed four months salaries by the government who they also accused of making plans to cut their salaries, as well as sack some workers.
Speaking to our reporter in Owerri, at the weekend, the workers, who do not want their names in print for fear of victimization, told government to remember that ISOPAD EC is established as an interventionist agency through which oil bearing communities get fair share of their oil resources with available infrastructures such as electricity, pipe born water, good road network, functioning and effective healthcare centres, including employment, empowerment, scholarships, bursary and internships locally and internationally.
The aggrieved workers, who reminded the public that the Commission’s salary/wage bill is a “little over forty million naira (N40m) with ISOPADEC receiving about ninety-five million (N95m) which cannot affect our salaries and allowances in any way”, said employing people is not a problem in the Commission, but management of the funds or allocations.
The staff regretted that “no single project was done in ISOPADEC under Hope Uzodimma since he became governor. Then where does ISOPADEC money go to. The last administration left over Eight Hundred Million naira at the Commission.
“We totally condemn how protesting workers and pensioners are being harassed by the government in the state under democracy and civil rule. The government is not doing the needful.
“We are worried that this current government is yet to constitute ISOPADEC management board after 7months and this constitutes parts of the problems workers are facing in the Commission”.
They told government to urgently release their fellow workers who were arrested and detained in prison unjustifiably, saying they are not hoodlums, but aggrieved workers who peacefully went into the streets to demonstrate in order to draw the attention of government to pay them as rules demand.
Recall that some peaceful protesters who were demonstrating for their pensions in the streets of Owerri were mercilessly flogged and dispersed forcefully with carnages with a tag as hired by the opposition.
