Kogi Govt Pays Political Aides, Abandons Civil Servants, Group Alleges

Yekini Jimoh in Lokoja

The Kogi Unity Frontiers, a non-governmental organi-sation, has carpeted the state government for allegedly paying political appointees three months salaries, while those in the civil service are waiting endlessly for their arrears.

The group, in a statement signed Thursday by its Chairman and Secretary, Bala Tanke Usman and Joe Atimose respectively, described the continued delay in the payment of workers their arrears of salaries even with the Paris Club refunds and outstanding federal allocation received by the government, as unfair.

The group said the promise by the government to pay through table payment this week seemed unrealistic with the week almost winding up without action.

It said: “Government should make good it promise to pay this week or come out with a clear statement of what it intends to do moving forward. We are calling on the government to note the high level of hardship facing Kogi workers. We frown at government’s preferential treatment for it few appointees over monies meant for civil servants, whose faith regarding their arrears still hangs in the balance.”

Efforts to reach the director general of the governor’s media and strategy directorate for reaction proved abortive, as his number did not connect.