By Demola Akinyemi

ILORIN-Scores of staff of Kwara State Water Corporation in Ilorin commenced three days warning strike Tuesday over non payments of their three months salaries which led to the untimely death of five of them.

The angry staff locked the main gates to their expansive office along Sulu Gambari road Ilorin,and displayed various placards to express their grievances.

Spokesman of the workers, Mr. Taiwo Oladimeji,who spoke with journalists said the action became necessary because they have run out of patience.

He lamented that five of them have died as a result of the non payment of salaries while majority of the dams across the state are no longer functioning, thereby resulting to their inability to supply water ‎to the residents as expected.

Oladimeji also called for the removal of the General Manager who he accused of gross incompetence.

According to him,”No fewer than five staff of the corporation have died due to non payment of salaries.”

“They are owing us three months salaries; cooperative arrears eight months; deductions of union dues is one year and four months; deduction of N3,000 minimum wage two years; deduction for the building of mosque.”

“From today we have commenced three days warning strike after the warning strike and our salaries are not paid we will embark on indefinitely.”

Similarly,Issa Olusesan (negotiating committee member) explained how every effort they made to make the management see reason failed which led to the warning strike.

His words,”This morning we are protesting against non payment of salaries, cooperative deductions, promotion and N3,000 salaries for the senior civil servants.”

“Before now we have gone through a lot of negotiation processes; we have written many letters and given a lot of ultimatums to no avail. After all these letters management invited us for series of meetings which did not yield any positive result.”

He also said that,”The amount being owed us put together is in the region of N100 million. As we are demanding for the payment of our salaries we discovered that a lot of damage has been done to the ministry of water resources; we no longer have confidence in our management. We want the General Manager to be changed. We are putting the gate under lock and key because we want our problem to be solved.”