By Francesca Hangeior

Akwa Ibom State governor, Umo Eno, has directed the Office of the Accountant General of the state to implement the N80, 000 minimum wage to about 45,984 verified public servants in the state this January.

The payment will take effect on November 1, 2024, according to the press statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Ekerete Udoh.

Udoh said the development followed the submission of the report by the Committee on the Implementation of the New Minimum Wage/Personnel Verification, headed by the Head of Service, Elder Effiong Essien, on Tuesday.

The governor, while thanking the Committee for the great work, called for an extension of the exercise to the retired workers’ Pension Schemes in the state.

“Let me thank the Committee for taking the time to deliver on this assignment. As I received this report today, my understanding is that before now, we had a staff strength of 55,120. Out of that, 52,177 persons turned out for the verification exercise, so we still have an outstanding number of 2,943 personnel who did not show up, while 6,193 have issues with their verification.

“Having received this report today, I will be signing this off to the Office of the Accountant General, Auditor General, and the Director of Budget to come up with the memo that they are ready to implement.

“For those who have been cleared—about 45,984 of them—we should be ready to pay the minimum wage at the end of this month, effective from November 1, 2024.

“The Civil Service forms a critical mass of employees in our state government. Since we came on board, their welfare has remained a key priority, and we will continue to do so. I believe this will help ameliorate the harsh economic environment we have found ourselves in, and I hope, by the grace of God, slowly, we will find our way out of it very soon.

“For the people who are yet to be verified, we will give another 30 days. After that, we will end the exercise. If they don’t show up within the time specified, we will take it that they are not civil servants, and their salaries will be stopped.

“We want to extend our hand of fellowship to the organized labour in the state and ask them to work with the government, as we all have a responsibility to Akwa Ibom State. We have done a lot to engender good government-labour relations. Since we came on board, we have paid over 47 billion in gratuities from the over 97 billion backlog we met since 2012, as well as several palliatives to the workers and people of Akwa Ibom State.” Eno said

He said he had accepted the recommendation of the Committee that the verification exercise should be done on a yearly basis. “I have received your recommendation that this exercise should be done on a yearly basis, and I think we will do so.

“Another area we will run verification is the pension payments. If what we uncovered can happen with serving personnel, then you can imagine what may be happening where people have unfortunately passed and are still being paid. We need to quickly carry out the verification exercise in that area too. So I am not dissolving the Committee now; we will extend the life of the Committee for another month.”

The Implementation Committee on the Minimum Wage was set up by Governor Eno last December to ensure a smooth rollout of the newly announced 80 thousand minimum wage.

“It had as Chairman, the Head of Service; Chairman, Civil Service Commission; Chairman, Local Government Service Commission; Permanent Secretaries; Ministries of Finance; Department of Establishments, Labour, and Manpower Planning; Solicitor General/Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Permanent Secretary and Accountant General; Permanent Secretary, Local Government Service Commission; Permanent Secretary, Office of the Head of Service; Director of Budget; State Chairman, Joint Public Service Negotiating Council; Secretary, Joint Public Sector Negotiating Council; State Chairmen, Nigerian Labour Congress; and State President, Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees.