The state leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress has appealed to the Rivers State Government to give sacked local government workers another chance to prove that they are genuine employees.
The NLC appealed to Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the State Local Government Service Commission to review the decision by way of fresh revalidation in the interest of families.
The state NLC Chairman, Alex Agwanwor, made the appeal in Port Harrcourt.
Recall that governor Furbara at the inauguration of the Omademe Internal Roads Project in Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state recently, defended his administration’s approval of a comprehensive staff payroll verification exercise targeting “ghost” workers across the 23 local government areas.
He said the approval of the verification and implementation of its report were borne out of his administration’s resolve to entrench fiscal discipline in the public service.
Agwanwor, however, said it was possible that some of the affected workers might have been omitted during the last verification, hence the appeal for the process to be reviewed.
He explained that the workers should be allowed to present documents such as their letters of employment, staff identity cards, nominal roles and bank statements for further verification.
Agwanwor said the NLC was ready to work with the state government to resolve the issues.
He said, “We are appealing in respect of the revalidation exercise which was approved for workers. Maybe some workers were omitted or not captured during the exercise and the affected workers should be given a reasonable opportunity to provide evidence of their employment.
“As NLC our duty is to ensure that no genuine worker be permanently removed from the payroll solely on the basis of not captured during the verification without opportunity to explain his or her circumstance to present evidence.
“That is our humble appeal to the state government and the local government service commission with regards to this verification exercise.
“For those who have been employed without the approval of the local government service commission within the time of this employment; I think they should also be considered because if there is a vacuum they can also fill such vacuum.
“They shouldn’t just be pushed away. It is an appeal we are making for those who were legally employed”.
He said the union would not make any case for those who were illegally employed or underage.
“For those underaged we don’t have any support for those ones. Any other one that has illegal status in their employment should be put aside,” he added.