Engineer Bassey Nkposong was not in office during the congress and messages and calls to his phone number were not answered and that of Mr Jackson John the Public Relations Officer of the Authority were not responded to either.
By Emma Una
At the weekend, the Cross River Basin Development Authority staff, CRBDA, lamented the non-payment of their three-year promotion arrears and illegal deductions from their monthly salaries.
In a congress held in the conference center of Authority at 8 Miles, Calàbar, the workers were restrained by their union executives from embarking on a protest by blockading the entrance to the Authority’s premises to demand the payment of 2017, 2018 and 2020 promotion arrears and an end to illegal deductions from their salaries as union dues.
The congress which was chaired by Comrade Joseph Etim, the branch Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Agriculture and Allied Employees, NUAAE, highlighted their plight and the hardship they are going through owing to the non-payment of their outstanding arrears. They demanded for the immediate release of the money and a stop to the double deductions from their salaries for union dues payments.
“Outstanding promotion arrears for 2017, 2018 and 2020 have since been paid to staff of other Basin Authorities across the country in full yet in our case only 50% is what we got and several appeals to the management of Cross River Basin Authority to offset our payment has fallen on deaf ears” one of the aggrieved staff lamented.
Comrade Etim said a Committee was set up by the management of CRBDA some months back to look into the issue but the report the workers got was that payment was done by IPPIS in Abuja when a delegation was sent to Abuja by the workers, they were informed in IPPIS office that they have no hand in it but the responsibility of the management of their Authority to pay them.
The staff called on the Minister of Water Resources to intervene by directing the CRBDA management to release their promotion arrears to them as done by the management of other Basin Authorities across the country.
“We appeal to the Minister of Water Resources to save us from this situation by directing the management of CRBDA to release the money to us which will be very useful in addressing some needs in these trying times,” Etim stated.
The staff also complained about what they call “illegal deductions” of their salaries as dues for two different unions.
Another said “We belong to the Nigeria Union of Agriculture and Allied Employees only but our salaries are being deducted to pay dues for the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria which we do not belong to. The salary of cleaners to senior staff of the Authority are deducted monthly making it double payment for dues which is illegal.”
The workers said they are being forcefully made to be members of the Association of Senior Civil Servants without their consent and deductions made from their monthly salaries as dues which is illegal.
“We have met several times with the Managing Director of the CRBDA, Engineer Bassey Nkposong to stop the deductions from our salary which is prepared here by the Deputy Director of Finance and Administration but this has not yielded results,” Comrade Etim said. This was not the case when other Basin Authorities appealed to the Minister of Water Resources to save the workers in CRBDA from their plight.
The distraught workers also appealed to the Minister to call on the management to stop the illegal sale of land within the CRBDA premises to land developers for building and other construction activities.
The workers said when they tried to stop the private land developer from building houses on the land, some workers including the branch Chairman of NUAAE were arrested by the police and detained for several days.
This reporter made calls to the Lower Basin River Development Authority, Anambra/Imo River Basin Authority and Lower Niger Basin Development Authority and some in those areas confirmed that deductions are made for only NUAAE and their outstanding promotion arrears have been cleared.
Engineer Bassey Nkposong was not in office during the congress and messages and calls to his phone number were not answered and that of Mr Jackson John the Public Relations Officer of the Authority were not responded to either.