Payment Of Abia Civil Servants Salaries, Unveiling the Lies of Aham Uko Pt 1

"Those who live by propaganda will die by propaganda" Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe

Recently we were fed with the magic hands of the new Commissioner of finance Dr. Aham Uko’ as it affects prompt payment of salaries even when he is aware that our financial standing may not be able to carry the burden of our over inflated salary wage bill, he went on a deceitful mission of signing an unrealistic social contract that payment of salaries must come on or before 24th of every month or at worst 28th we notified the public of the reasons why such contracts may be realizable in the immediate but not sustainable, but just like every lie and make belief it has an ending and the ending for Aham Uko’s lies is here already

Rather than face financial realities, Dr. Uko embarked on a cheap campaign of self-praise using every forum to eulogize himself while casting aspersions on his predecessor and blaming him for late payment of salaries even when he is aware that the fault may not be entirely his.

We took time to explain to Abians the reasons for the prompt payments ranging from the shift in the FAAC date from 25th to 18th of every month and most importantly restructuring of the TOD of 3.7b to a term loan with a tenor of 3 years.

The gains we made by ensuring that the state is freed from heavy Temporary Over Drafts (TOD) that has heaped pressure on our accounts so that on receipt of our monthly allocation, payments of salaries commences since we don’t need to wait for a new month to renew the existing TOD after paying down with the FAAC allocation have been also been eroded and Dr. Uko has gone back to massive borrowing to pay his masters who had to resurrect old Payment vouchers dating back to 2008.


The effects of all these under the table transactions are that Abians have gone back to same old system of waiting for the banks to process TOD before salaries can be paid, My worry is that the romance lasted only 4 months before they took us back to Egypt. I am pained that Abia workers is going to face a very difficult period and are advised to put on their seat belt as this journey is set to be very turbulent and rough given the foreseeable economic crisis that may hit the state soon.

On the claims of IGR Growth.

We are used to these figures which can never be verified and has never reflected on the life and living standard of the average Abian. It is our wish and prayer that our IGR improves but nobody should play politics with this all important sector which keeps reminding us how behind we are as a State.

Abians should note that the month of January usually experiences increase in IGR and is naturally expected because demand notices for revenues in the New Year is usually given out before the end of the year. The few corporate clients in Abia like NBL and others pay their taxes in January to avoid molestation and we can only rejoice over this claim if this 1billion naira hit in IGR is sustained in the next two months.

It has become very clear that the new Commissioner for Finance is here to play politics and make personal gains, that’s why he goes about deceiving Abians with unrealistic claims.

It’s very laughable to note that after so much boasts of how he is going to offset the pension arrears all he did was to sprinkle two months arrears on a few selected pensioners majorly their leadership just to keep them out of the media and block them from staging protests, whereas the larger percentage of genuine pensioners were left unpaid and with no hope of being paid.

It is unfortunate that despite the purported verification exercise, non pensioners were fraudulently added to the list, increasing the pension bill to an all-time high of about 700m.

The current reality is that as at today, not even one month pension arrears was completely paid, and over 25 months has been left unpaid, its pitiful that the current pension chairman is being buried today Friday 28th of February 2020 and members can't even attend the burial of their leader due to lack of money occasioned by non-payment of their due entitlement after going on radio to announce that they have been paid.

In the midst of all the lies and propaganda let’s not also forget that ABSUTH received their last salary, November 2018, Abiapoly is still being owed 17 months arrears while Health Management Board is 12 months down and our commissioner for finance is busy playing politics with our salaries, wages and pensions.

Michael Onwuka
Chairman
Abia Unity Forum