Following the unpaid 11 months salaries owed them, the workers of Abia state Government Hospitals Management Board (HMB), a parasatal under the state’s ministry of health, Umuahia on Monday staged a protest, ABN TV reports.
Some of the protesting workers alleged that the government stopped paying them since the month of May, 2016 for undisclosed reason.
The protesters barricaded the busy Aba road, close to the government house, carrying various placards with different inscriptions. The protest caused very slow movement of traffic in the capital city.
Comrade Ejike Patrick O., the medical and health workers chairman, of HMB revealed to ABNTV the reason of the protest.
“As you can see from our placards that we have not been paid for barely eleven months, by the end of this September it will be one year. We receive our last salary in September 2018.” Comrade Ejike said.
When asked if they have made any move before now to draw the attention of the government before embarking on a protest, Ejike said: “of course, before now we have been communicating with them, we have written series of letters to the management and to the head of service. Last time the house of assembly committee called us for a meeting and we were there with them. They agreed that they will look into it but this period they are on break to resume on the 5th of this months.”
“All this while, we have not receive anything from the government and government is aware of our condition. We cannot even pay our children’s school fees and house rent. Last time when we had this kind of protest, the governor promised us that he will be paying us one month each time the allocation comes in. The last protest we made was in July this year,” Ejike said.
Watch the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_kxqoepDnY
