Okezie Ikpeazu, the governor of Abia State, has made what many have called a false assertion that his administration owes some state employees several months’ worth of wages.
Alex Otti, the state’s newly elected governor, had said after the election that he had ran for office a third time because the incumbent administration had not addressed the concerns that had prompted him to do so the previous time around, such as the failure to pay employees’ salaries.
Governor Ikpeazu stated that no “core civil servant” is owed any wages in an interview with Channels TV on Thursday, March 30. He also stated that parastatal employees are more likely to have wage problems.
“I have 31,000 workers in Abia workforce and 29,000 of them are up to date as we speak in salary payment… Parastatals receive subvention. I don’t pay their salaries because they are revenue-generating agencies of government,” Ikpeazu said.
He claims that the problem of unpaid salaries and pensions existed long before he took office, and he has done his utmost to resolve it in the hope that his successor will pick up where he left off.
“But I don’t run away from responsibility, the issue of pension has been there perennially for the past 24 years. I did as much as I could, this government since inception passed through two to three recessions. When I came, within three months of my administration, I paid eleven months’ arrears of salary. Those eleven months were there while I was governor. So, if you take up the position of governor you have accepted to take over both liability and asset and I don’t like to complain. I didn’t have to talk about what my predecessors did not do because what gave me my job in the first place was that there were things they didn’t do. So, for somebody to come and make a sweeping statement that no salary is being paid is a lie, I am not owing any core civil servant salary,” he added.
