Workers of Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (ISOPADEC) have decried 80 percent cut from their salary by the present government.
The workers have also frowned at the government for owing them five months salary without making any effort to pay them.
Some of the workers who spoke to News Echo, in Owerri, said they rejected the decision of government over the cut from their basic salary, urging the governor to treat them well as good labourers deserve their wages.
The aggrieved workers told the Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodimma to rescind his decision of cutting their salary, but rather increase it, considering that ISOPADEC was established by law as an interventionist agency, which sees to the welfare of oil producing communities of Imo State.
They lamented marginalization, highhandedness and denial by the governor, who they begged not to cut their salary, nor compare ISOPADEC staff to workers of the ministries and the parastatals.
According to the employees who chose to speak under condition of enemity, “It is not civil that the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, wants to be paying ISOPADEC staff as workers in the ministry and other government parastatals, forgetting that ISOPADEC is an interventionist agency, established for the welfare of oil bearing communities.
“The Governor cut 80 percent from our salary. A worker, who receives #160,000 now receive #45,000 monthly. We say no to such obnoxious cut from our salary. Let ISOPADEC funds be controlled and managed well by God- fearing people in order to reduce poverty and social insecurity which bedeviled the Niger Delta areas”, they reiterated.
“Please, government, pay us our five months salary. Labourers deserve their wages. We are being marginalized and abandoned since February, 2020, when you were declared Governor of Imo State by the Supreme Court”.
The other workers, who did not want their names in print, also told the governor to urgently set up ISOPADEC Management Board so that the commission would be manned efficiently and effectively. The governor it would be noted has since assumption is yet to reconstitute the board of the agency.
They called for the immediate release of the detained and incarcerated colleagues, who they regretted are languishing in prison for demanding for their salary.
