Lawyers employed as state counsels in the Ministry of Justice, Cross River State have taken to the streets of Calabar and the governor’s office to demonstrate their grievances over the non-payment of salary for over two years.

Barr Mrs Linda Okon Asuquo, one of the affected state counsel said, “I work with the Ministry of Justice as a state counsel in the ministry of public prosecution, Calabar. Sometime in 2016, there were employment notices circulated in the different ministries for employment, there were vacancies as well, so we applied and forty lawyers were employed in the ministry of justice by the state government, that was precisely in December 2016.

“We wrote examinations, we were interviewed and given appointment letters. At the end of the day, having been on probation for two years, we were confirmed, our appointment was confirmed; that was in 2018. Though when we were employed in December 2016, from 2016-2017, we were not paid salaries by the state government, but we were still working. In July 2017, the government pay rolled us and started paying us our salaries.”

“In August 2019, there was a call for personnel audit, we all attended and were cleared. The government said they were trying to fish out ghost workers. We were cleared, however, unfortunately in September 2019; our names were dropped from the payroll without any notice, without any termination of appointment.

“All the forty of us and others from other ministries, MDA from 2015 were dropped from the payroll; over three thousand persons in the whole of Cross River state. We asked why, they said, they were trying to fish out ghost workers,” she said.

She added that, “because of the uproar and the inconveniences it cost us, we did not fold our arms, we went to the Head of Service, there was no response, we had to take it up with the government; there were protests here and there, at the end of the day, the governor Prof Senator Ben Ayade called for a screening of the workers whose names were dropped from the payroll to meet at UJ Esuene stadium to be screened again. We all who were employed at the ministry of justice, about forty of us went for the screening including myself and my colleague Barr Cletus Adama.

“However, that was in September 2020, in October, the then head of service Dr Chris Ita who was given the mandate to compile the names and submit to the governor for approval omitted our names, from our ministry we were two of us, I and Barr Cletus, were excluded, by omission according to them, our files were found among those who were not pay rolled at all.

“Whilst we were pay-rolled, they were other persons who were employed in 2018 but were not pay-rolled, and the governor has approved and made it impossible for us to be paid. We also followed up with the head of service office and he said he’ll do something about it. He wrote a letter dated November 18, 2020 to the governor explaining to him that there was an omission from his office and that the fault was theirs.

“However the then head of service now retired, Dr Chris Ita was unable to solve this problem, and the new head of service, Barr Geraldine Akpet when she resumed office in January, we went to her and she said she’ll do something about it, according to her, she has also written a letter to the governor, but it is yet to be attended to.

“In fact, we do not know who to believe because, when you request a copy of the letter, nobody will give it to you. It came to a point where we had to write to the auditor general explaining these issues to him, that the head of service is aware of this development and has even written to the governor, so he didn’t reply, we went to Dr Alfred Mbotu who is the Permanent Secretary on Security, he accommodated us each time we went to him. He asked us to ask the head of service to release the letter she did to the governor so he can work with that, but the head of service refused. We went to the then Commissioner of Police, CP Akande to explain our plight and inform him of our plans to protest, but he intervened and said he’ll look into it.

“We are still working, going to courts and yet not paid. Since we cannot see the governor, that’s why we came out to make our demands known before we commence our protest,” he said.

(Nigerian Tribune)

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