By Tom Moses

UYO—Local government employees, under the aegis of Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, Akwa Ibom State chapter, will today, commence an indefinite strike to protest the state government’s alleged refusal to settle outstanding salaries and emoluments of serving and retired council workers.

Vanguard gathered that workers in the 31 local government areas in the state will take part in the strike.

President of NULGE in Akwa Ibom State, Mr Martins Effiong, explained that the protests became necessary following government’s refusal to honour the agreement it reached with the union to settle all outstanding issues bordering on salaries and emoluments of serving and retired council workers.

According to him, the state government was owing 12 months arrears of salaries  in Uyo Local Government Area, four months in Ikot Ekpene, two months in Abak and one month across Ini, Ikono, Uruefong Oruko, Ika and Itu Local Government Areas.

Other grey areas in the dispute include non-implementation of promotion arrears, leave grants, pension and gratuities for retired workers for three months and other outstanding arrears since 2012.

Effiong lamented that the indebtedness has made the councils to become bankrupt to the point of not being able to settle outstanding stipends owed ad-hoc staff for over seven months.

It will be recalled that NULGE had embarked on strike over the matter in November 2014, forcing government to reach a truce with the union in February 2015 with a promise to address the issues in dispute before the end of the year.

But Effiong lamented that the suspension of the strike was not reciprocated by the government of Udom Emmanuel, which reneged  on the agreement.

According to Effiong, the denial of the council workers their due entitlements had subjected the affected workers to untold hardship while some unfortunate ones died in the course of waiting for their emoluments.