By Anayo Okoli

UMUAHIA—ABIA State council of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Accountant-General of the state, Mr. Gabriel Onyendilefu, are at logger-heads over the salary arrears  being owed workers.

While the Accountant-General maintained that the government did not owe workers salary arrears, Labour insisted that some workers, especially those in parastatals, pensioners, teachers and council staff, were being owed salary arrears of between three and six months.

Onyendilefu was quoted in a national daily (not Vanguard) last week, as saying that government was owing the affected staff subvention, not salary.

But rising from its State Administrative Council, SAC, meeting, yesterday, Abia NLC faulted the position of the Accountant-General, accusing him of “deliberately feeding the public with wrong information.”

Briefing journalists on the outcome of the meeting, state chairman of NLC, Uchenna Obigwe, said that the Accountant-General was deceiving the new governor and the general public on the true position of the salary dispute between the workers and government.

To this end, Obigwe said that Labour had decided to write Governor Okezie Ikpeazu on the matter to put the records straight.

According to him, what the government agreed with parastatals, such as Abia State University Teaching Hospital, ABSUTH, Aba, was that of its N170 million wage bill, it will provide N150 million, while the management will make up for the balance.

For the Hospital Management Board, Obigwe said the government also promised to be providing some amount monthly for them.

He said that since the parastatals were not given take-off grant, government should not expect them to fend for themselves.

Obigwe asked the Accountant-General to explain what happened to the state’s allocation for the month of May, since core civil servants, including teachers, ASUBEB   and council workers, had not yet received their May salary.