Following the alarm raised by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Abia State led by Okoro Ogbonnaya, the state government has said it is not embarking on another verification exercise for public and civil servants in the state.
The Abia government, while declaring that “there is no smoke without fire”, explained that workers in the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) as well as the 17 LGAs were only asked to upload their credentials online to make documentation of their employment easy for them.
The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Okey Kanu disclosed this while briefing the press after this week’s executive council meeting presided over by Governor Alex Otti.
He was reacting to the communique by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) which said that workers should not be part of any verification exercise.
“Government is not embarking on any verification; rather what is going on is that workers were asked to upload their credentials online.
“And like they say, there is always no smoke without fire; the government had planned to make certain appointments from within the civil service and when the files of some senior civil servants were brought forward, it was found out that there were no papers (necessary documents) in those files,” he said.
The Commissioner said that the NLC and any other group telling the workers to shun the exercise without finding out from the Abia State government was being unfair, creating false alarm and misleading the workers.
Kanu equally chided some members of Abia State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) who issued a public statement to the effect that their executives did not represent them well during the discussions that led to the payment of their outstanding pensions in the state.
He noted that it was funny for the NUP members to complain after the pensioners had received bank credit alerts of their pensions.
According to Kanu, “Their outstanding pensions were paid, there were no complaints and suddenly they woke up to say that they don’t accept the outcome of the agreement.
“And there is a part of that agreement that says that in the event of any disagreement, that both parties should come together and mutually resolve it but the NUP did not do that.”