Don’t Incite workers Against Obiano, Anambra HoS Urges Politicians
The Anambra government has said that the deduction of money from salaries of workers for the purpose of stabilising Ndiolu Micro Finance Bank (NMFB) Limited was entirely was to implement the agreement between labour and the bank.
Mr Harry Udu, Head of Service in Anambra said this at a news conference in Awka on Tuesday.
Udu was reacting to position of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the stage which accused the government of deducting varying percentage from workers’ to recapitalise NMFB in line with the directive of Central Bank of Nigeria.
According to PDP, we are genuinely concerned about the welfare of Anambra civil servants, who are coerced to part with certain percentages of meager take home salaries.
“What a responsible and responsive government should be doing now is to think of what to do to alleviate their sufferings and not making things harder for them through illegal deductions from their salaries.
“We demand that the deducted money from the workers’ salaries be returned immediately,” they said.
But addressing the media, Udu said the opposition party was whipping up unnecessary sentiment with the aim of pitching the labour movement against Gov. Willie Obiano who had been good to them in the past seven years.
He said the board and management of the bank presented the challenge to stakeholders and leadership of the workforce, after which they agreed that deductions be made according to grade levels to facilitate the capitalisation.
The HoS said NMFB was solely owned by workers of Anambra and not the state government as insinuated by the PDP and that fact could be seen in the bank’s website,
“Ndiolu MFB is owned solely by the Workers of Anambra, it is not owned by the government.
“The insinuation that the directive for the deductions for recapitalization was made by His Excellency Chief Willie Obiano is totally untrue and can only be borne out of political mischief
“Our labour leaders, including the state NLC Chairman have already rebutted these false politically motivated statements and allegations,” he said.
Udu said this was a politically charged times in the state as the Nov. 6 governorship election approaches, and called on all political interest groups and parties to refrain from dragging the civil service into politics.
The Service is there to serve any Government that is duly elected, the effort to link these deductions to Obiano is a futile one since the workers know the truth, it is also untrue that workers welfare is not receiving adequate attention because governor Obiano is one of the best in that regard.
“We plead with political leaders not to waste time and effort in trying to introduce acrimony between the governor and workers as the cordial relation has lasted for seven years,” he said.
The Head of Service was flanged by management team of the bank and representatives of the labour movement.
