On Thursday, 600 newly recruited street sweepers in Taraba state decried what they described as a quarter salary. They informed journalists that Governor Agbu Kefas failed to pay the negotiated N20,000 as their monthly salaries, receiving only N13,000 as their first salary instead.

Mr Illya Kefas, the coordinator of Taraba State Sanitation Agency, had earlier told journalists that the 600 youth and women, known as Jalingo street sweepers, were engaged by the state governor to clean the state capital on a monthly allowance of N20,000.

“We were asked to go to the Taraba State sanitation agency’s office last week concerning our first salaries. We were both happy but to our greatest surprise, we were paid N13,000 cash, as against the negotiated N20,000.

“We were told by the agency that our monthly allowances would be N20,000 each. Aside from that, we were supposed to be paid in the first week of July, but it was until the third week of July that a quarter’s salary was given to us without any explanation about the situation.

“We were threatened to either quit the job if we are not satisfied with the N13,000. Some of us have already borrowed to meet our family needs considering the expectation that the agreed N20,000 was going to be intact,” the sweepers decried.

Meanwhile, Mr Iliya Kefas, the coordinator of Taraba State Sanitation Agency, denied that there was any standing agreement between the government and the street sweepers concerning their monthly take-home.

“There was no agreement between the government or the agency with the cleaners concerning their monthly take-home,” he argued.

However, Chief GT Kataps, Taraba state Secretary to the government of the state (SGS), said the amount approved for the sweepers’ monthly allowance was N15,000 and not N20,000 as speculated. (Nigerian Tribune)