Chairman of Emouha Local Government Area in Rivers State, Dr. Chidi Lloyd, has described those alleging non-payment of salaries by the council as impostors, urging them to come forward with documents proving that they are bonafide staffers in the council.
Lloyd who was reacting to the continued protest at the council gate for alleged non-payment of salaries on Tuesday said the protest is aimed at distracting him from righting the wrongs in the council, which has over the years, hampered development in the area.
Stressing that most of the protesters are non-council staffers hired to discredit his administration, he emphasized that the council has paid all verified staff members their salaries.
While assuring that every single person who got into the council payroll through the backdoor will be shown the way out, he reiterated that it is criminal for people who have no proof of employment from the State Local Government Service Commission to be earning salaries from the council treasury at the end of every month.
He queried why out of over 1,360 staff of the council, it is only the protesting few who claim to work for the local government that are alleging non-payment of salaries.
He added that the aim of those sponsoring the protest is to blackmail and distract him from continuing with the verification of the council nominal roll, reiterating that the days when non-council staff received salaries from the comfort of their homes were over, as his administration is determined to fight the corruption in the system.
The EMOLGA council boss, however, said he is not unaware of the price he has to pay to end the corruption that has kept the local government backward, but reassured that he was determined and prepared to change the narrative in Emouha local government area.
He further called on the leadership of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) in Rivers State to set up a committee to investigate the alleged non-payment of salaries to establish whether or not his administration was unduly withholding the salary of any genuine council staff.
Meanwhile, the leadership of NULGE in the state has blamed the alleged non-payment of workers’ salaries on the management staff of the council.
The Rivers State Chairman of NULGE, Clifford Paul, who disclosed this while addressing the protesting workers at the council secretariat, blamed the management staff of the council for not handing the chairman the correct nominal roll of the council on assumption of office, stressing that Lloyd was only trying to ensure that the right thing was done to fast track development in the local government area.
He added that the unpatriotic attitude of the management staff of the council frustrates the chairman’s effort to correct the malformation of the said nominal roll.
