The Chairman of Anambra State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Emeka Nwafor, has charged Governor Chukwuma Soludo to provide vehicles and security for workers coming to work to Awka, the state capital on Mondays in view of the sit-at-home imposed by the Indigenous People of Biafra(IPOB).
Nwafor said by so doing, workers would feel safe and comfortable to shun Mondays sit-at-home and continue and come to work on Mondays, as directed by Governor Soludo.
Reacting to Soludo’s May Day rally directive that every civil servant in the state must henceforth be coming to work on Mondays or be prepared to have their salaries cut, Nwafor noted that it would be suicidal for workers coming from areas like Ihiala, Onitsha and Aguata to board commercial vehicles on Mondays to travel to Awka and go back after the day’s work without assured security arrangements by the government.
According the State NLC boss, “If the Governor wants all the workers to be coming to work on Mondays, he should provide buses to convey workers to Awka every Monday and then provide security to guide and protect the workers at the Secretariat until the day is over and the vehicles would equally take the workers back to their respective destinations at the end of the day”.
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Commercial vehicles are still afraid of plying the roads on Mondays for fear of being attacked by hoodlums enforcing the illegal sit-at-home.
Also speaking, Chairman of Nigerian Civil Service Union, NCSU, Paul Uwaeze, said government should refurbish all the dilapidated office furniture and equipment to enhance productivity on the part of the workers, adding that government should stop imposing contractors on the workers to come and calculate their payroll for the workers.
In their separate speeches, the state chairman of Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, Chinedu Nwabueze solicited state government support in improving their services in the state.
Nwabueze noted that the association has introduced ambulance services for accident victims along the federal and state highways to save lives and properties.
Southeast Zonal Chairman of National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, Dr. Austin Udeozor appealed to Soludo to recognize them as partners in progress in the state, particularly now that the state government is looking for avenues to increase its internally generated revenue, IGR.
According to Udeozor, “It is quite ironical that NURTW is working in all the states of the federation, except in Anambra state. We are not Agberos. We maintain security in motor parks and also generate revenue for the government”.
