THERE have been lamentations among some federal government workers over what they described as payment of ?half salary? for January.

But the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council, JPSNC, has assured workers that the matter is being looked into and that a letter has been written to the Head of Civil Service of the Federation.

Some federal civil servants had complained that they were ?shortchanged? in their January salary.

An assistant director in the federal civil service told Vanguard that he collected N510,000 in December but was paid N360,000 in January.

He said: ?We were shortchanged, many of my colleagues were paid half salary. I hope this is not deliberate. The new minimum wage did not even reflect on the payment slip.?

Responding to the complaint, Chairman, Public Service Joint Negotiation Council, Benjamin Anthony, said that efforts have been put in place to correct the problem.

According to him: ?The issue with the January salary, there was a mixed up from the IPPIS (Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System). We have written to the Head of Service of the Federation and In her proactiveness had told us that they are working on it.

?To ensure that they correct it. If the workers look at the previous salaries that have been paid to them, there was no problem. So even the IPPIS has confirmed that there is a mixed up, so it will be corrected.?

Continuing, Anthony said: ? When you see a salary table, you take it, pick your own grade level and step and divide it by 12, you will know the actual pay that you will be going home with every month, and if there is anything below that, that is where you will now come up and complain.

?But they will be shouting, they cannot go to their industrial unions and submit all this thing and which is not helping us, because it is the information from them that we are going to use and work on it.?

Asked whether the peculiar allowance of N40,000 has been removed from the payment slip, he said: ?The peculiar allowance we negotiated and federal government agreed to continue to pay it. I think the computer removed it from their payroll, and that is the root of the problem. I know of peculiar allowance, that one is not there. So they will reflect it and pay them.

?Apart from peculiar allowance. I think they have been paid their 25 percent salary review that was done, they have been paid that one. I think some of them, we asked, they told us that they finished paying in December, also the wage award they have finished paying that one, that we confirmed?

On the omission of minimum wage on the pay slip, he said: ?That is the mistake from the system. It doesn?t mean that it has not been paid. They have started paying it, if you check the salary, if you look at directors before, they were taking around N500 hundred and something thousand, but if you look at it now, it is N700 hundred and something thousand and all other grade levels.

?There are great changes. We appeal to the Nigeria public service worker that if there?s any complaint, they should quickly submit it through their industrial union so that we can collect this data and then forward to the government for implementation.?

Comrade Anthony further said: ? We have also written to all the industrial unions that they should collect names of the people that are affected and send to us so that we can forward it to the federal government and we are yet to get any reply from any industrial union.

?I want to ask the workers to keep calm and also for them to submit their complaints to their industrial unions so that they can forward it to us.? (Vanguard)

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