IMO STATE GOVERNMENT HOUSE, OWERRI
PRESS RELEASE
SUBJECT:  IMO GOVERNMENT DENIES OWING WORKERS ELEVEN MONTHS SALARY ARREARS
 
Some Patriotic Nigerians and Imo citizens in particular have been inundating senior officials of the Imo State Government with phone calls following reports in some reputable National newspapers including the Vanguard, New Telegraph, Guardian among others, that the Owelle Rochas Okorocha’s government is owing workers in the state eleven (11) months salary arrears or thereabout.
 
The report in question made front page stories of some of the newspapers concerned and as a government, we owe Nigerians the correct information on the workers salary in Imo which is completely opposite of the media reports.  And whatever claim we make in this refutal, we stand to be contradicted.
 
Again, in all the reports, the source of the story or the source from where the information in the case of Imo state came from was never made clear and that lacuna also heightened our suspicion that those who lost the governorship election in the state in April 2015, must have volunteered such falsehood.  We are not worried about that since we can always state the truth of the matter.  We see the whole report as unfortunate and a deliberate effort to hit at the Rescue Mission government in the state.
 
The truth is that Imo state government does not owe the civil servants or the teachers who constitute the government workers in the state eleven months salary arrears and not even two months salary arrears.  We are making this claim to be contradicted with verifiable fact.
 
The Imo state government only owes its civil servants the month of May salary.  Ditto, the teachers in the state.   And the payment for that month is at the verge of being made.  We have decided to make this factual claim on the salaries of the civil servants and teachers in the state so that those behind the report can come out with their own facts to back their claim.
 
In the case of parastatals, the government has equally be living up to expectations with regard to payment of their salaries expect few of them where the government’s verification panels discovered irritating padding of salaries for non-existent staff and where high-profiled corruption was uncovered.  And the government had for the umpteenth time said it would only pay those in the affected parastatals when the issues in question must have been rectified.
 
So, it is left for those behind the report with some of them quoting a source from the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, to come out and fault our claims or refutal.  We would like to be faulted on our claim that we are owing the civil servants only the month of May salary and the same development with the teachers.  These are the workers in the state we believe the NLC source quoted in the reports must have talked about.
 
If the newspapers that wrote the story on the claimed debt of eleven months salary arrears owed the civil servants and teachers in the state discover at the end of the day that we are right in our claims contrary to the reports under reference, we expect that as reputable and widely read tabloids, they would massage us by retracting the report at least for the sake of the heard-earned reputation of the Rescue Mission government in the state.
 
The government in Imo state with Governor Rochas Okorocha on the driver’s seat shall continue to be truthful and honest about its claims and counter-claims on issues for the sake of history and posterity.
 
Sam Onwuemeodo
Chief Press Secretary to the Governor

Welcome development. Am not a fan of Rochas and I believe he doesn't have the heart of Satan to owe 11 months salaries.

Even if it is one month you pay it .....

the mallam deceiving IMOLITES, Oga ROCHAS, when last did you pay youth must work?

pls tell them jor, all this newspaper will just be writing whatever they like.

But a certain NgeneUkwenu claimed that Imo state owes workers more than 6months salary.