Workers of the Abia State Hospital Management Board (AHMB), on Thursday, protested against non-payment of their 19 months’ salary by the government.
The protesters, bearing placards with different messages, basically demanded payment of their outstanding salary.
They blocked one lane of the Aba Road near their office thereby causing serious traffic snarl between the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Umuahia and the Golden Guinea Breweries.
The Chairman of Allied Action Committee of the Hospital Management Board, Comrade Chikezie Echeta, said they staged the protest because they are being owed 19 months salary, vowing that they will do everything for Governor Okezie Ikpeazu to hear them.
Chairperson of the AHMB chapter of the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), Mrs. Mary Nwokoma, decried the government’s refusal to pay the workers despite signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the matter with a pledge to pay as soon as possible.
Regrettably, she said, the government reneged on the agreement.
A cross-section of the protesting workers
Also speaking, comrades Dave Otuiheneme and Mbanaso Ifeanyi, appealed to the government to pay the workers their salary arrears, lamenting that most of them are in deep pain and agony for lack of money.
The AHMB workers are among other employees of the state ministries, agencies, departments and boards of establishments being owed salary arrears.
But the government argues that by the law establishing them as revenue generation centres, they ought to use part of their generated revenue to pay workers salaries, while the government gives them subvention to augment their operations.
The government said it has faithfully kept its own part of the bargain, saying their situation is not the same as the core civil servants, which the government wis directly responsible for the payment of their salaries.