Abia  Govt  says only 500 workers benefited from Ikpeazu’s command promotion

…Says it won’t pay accumulated Leave Allowances

From Boniface Okoro, Umuahia

Abia State government has accused the immediate past Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, of abusing Command Promotions to civil servants in the state while he held sway, citing it as the reason for its decision to reverse all such promotions from 2015 to 2023.

The government which gave the explanation during the post-State Council Executive (EXCO) Weekly meeting Press Briefing at Government House Umuahia, also made it clear that it would not pay accumulated Leave Allowances owed to civil and public servants in the state.

Answering questions on why the government decided to cancel the Command Promotion which Governor Ikpeazu had granted Abia workers before exiting power, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ferdinand Ekeoma, maintained that the government prerogative was recklessly abused as only 500 out of about the 50, 000-strong workforce benefited from the automatic promotions.

“Command promotion is an automatic promotion given by government to any civil servant that merits it based on excellence, performance or competence or whatever they may have done to merit it.

“It is not something you wake up and issue recklessly. Unfortunately, the previous government abused it. They were so reckless in granting Command Promotion to people who had no business to benefit from that and that is why government decided to cancel all Command Promotions between 2015 and 2023,” Ekeoma said.

Citing examples of favouritism that allegedly characterized the automatic promotion offers, which the present government says brought disharmony and despondency in the civil and public service of the state, the Governor’s aide said: “There was a case of a particular person who was made a Permanent Secretary in this state who was on Grade Level 10 in the Local Government system. He was brought into a particular Ministry here, catapulted to Grade Level 16 and made a Permanent Secretary, above his seniors. In another case, we had a civil servant on Grade Level 12 who was promoted above his seniors.

“The information we have is that we have about 50, 000 civil servants and only about 500 benefited from the Command Promotion. The 500 were favoured people who had connections with the powers that be then.

“So, the Command Promotions and other irregular promotions brought serious confusion, making people feel disillusioned and all the rest.

“So, in order to restore normalcy and ensure procedural promotions in order of seniority that follows due process, we had to reverse those command promotions.”

Adding his voice, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Citizen Ukoha Njoku Ukoha, said that “by the cancellation of the Command Promotion, government is simply saying “go back to where you belong to.” 

On the issue of leave allowance, the Commissioner for Information and Culture, Prince Okey Kanu, told newsmen that government would henceforth simultaneously pay workers their leave allowances as they proceed on their annual leave.

“The issue of Leave allowance, the Governor has agreed that any Abia worker that goes on Leave will be paid his/her Leave Allowance. That was not the practice in the past. What we inherited was accumulated Leave Allowances but all that will be in the past given the Governor’s commitment, which he made even before this meeting with Organized Labour,” the Commissioner added.

However, Mr Ekeoma said government would not pay the accumulated leave allowances, stressing that government would only pay from the time it assumed office.

According to him, it would be difficult to determine the value of the accumulated leave allowances because it did not happen under the present administration, and as such, they could not say who went on Leave.

Meanwhile, the Abia State government has agreed to pay a wage award of N15, 000, totaling N45, 000 for three months, to Abia workers.

The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Prince Okey Kanu, who made this known during the EXCO news briefing, said the decision made the Organised Labour in the state to shelve its planned strike action scheduled to have commenced on Monday July 15, 2024.

Kanu said: “The expected strike by Abia State chapter of Organised Labour, following the seven days ultimatum given to the state government has been called off. And they called off that strike because there was an interface: a meeting with the Governor and the State Executives of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) during which His Excellency, Dr. Alex Otti, (OFR), duly informed them that the state did not receive any wage award from the federal government.

“However, because of the Governor’s commitment to the workers’ welfare, he accepted to pay Abia workers a wage award of N45, 000 in total, at N15, 000 per month, over a course of three months, as a way of making our workers happy.”

Abia was almost in the throes of an imminent system shutdown as the workers had threatened to embark on an indefinite industrial action to press home their demands.

The demands included full implementation of N30, 000 minimum wage; payment of the N35, 000 palliative wage award; settlement of arrears of Leave Allowances/Promotions; payment of salaries owed workers in the parastatals and agencies, revisiting the issues of pensions and gratuity, and exclusion of Labour from the unending verification exercise /and the government’s directive to workers to upload their credentials online, payment of severance benefits to disengaged Permanent Secretaries and reversal of the cancellation of Command Promotion, as well as issues of workers promotion.

After the two-day emergency meetings at the instance of the Governor, ostensibly to avert the looming strike action, what was sorted out was government’s acceptance to pay N15, 000 per month wage award only.

On the minimum wage, the Governor directed the Accountant-General of the state to liaise with the Labour within the next one week to reconcile the actual amount that the least paid worker in the state should receive as minimum wage, saying that information available to him indicates that the state was paying N30, 100.

But the state NLC Chairman, Comrade Ogbonnaya Okoro, said that the state government was currently paying N20, 100, while workers in the local government system receive N18,000 as minimum wage.