The Governor of Kwara State, Mr Abdulfatah Ahmed, has expressed displeasure over the protest held by the state civil servants.
He made this known during a meeting with the labour leaders and Chairmen of Local Government Councils.
The meeting was held in order to resolve the non-payment of the workers salary arrears.
The meeting was attended by the leadership of various unions in the state which include, the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE).
Governor Ahmed promised to ensure that their salaries are paid promptly but with some conditions attached.
He added that the larger percentage of last month’s allocation was given to offset primary and junior secondary school teacher’s salary to save the education sector from collapse to ensure that pupils go back to school.
The Governor stated that since the allocation from the federation has been dwindling, complaints should be directed at the council chairmen on how to increase their internally generated revenue to augment in paying local government salaries.
He also gave the labour leaders three conditions on how to put a permanent stop to non-delay in the payment of salaries.
The conditions include sharing the allocation as they come on monthly basis, which could mean collecting half salary monthly; calculation of the number of days worked by each worker before collection based on number of days and outright reduction of staff strength in order to collect full salary.
At the end of the three-hour meeting, they agreed not to retrench workers but promised to get back on the remaining two options.
Recently, the staff of the sixteen local government held a demonstration in Kwara State.
They took to the streets in the state capital protesting non-payment of six months’ salary arrears by local government chairmen.
The protest took them to the gate of Government House where they demanded to see the governor to inform him of how they are being treated by their employers.
