By Abuja, Nigeria
The Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, Lere Olayinka has disclosed that nobody in the FCT Administration is being owed salary.
His comment was in reaction to the strike embarked on by workers of the FCT Administration over non-payment of their outstanding 5-month wage award.
Olayinka made the disclosure while featuring on “Arise News Night Insight” monitored by AfrikTimes, reaffirming his earlier stance that the payment for FCTA workers has started.
“Nobody in the FCT is owed salary, I have also received my December salary. Let’s not confuse the people, the issue you are talking about is about casual workers, casual workers in the sense that they are people that are engaged occasionally,” he said.
“You engage them when you need them, so they are not permanent workers. It’s just like you need bricklayers and you go to artisan market to pick two or three bricklayers to work with you, when they finish their job, they would go back home, he added.
Olayinka however, maintained that the payment for the outstanding five months wage award has commenced already. He also clarified claims on the elongation of tenures of Permanent Secretaries in the FCT, stressing that the Minister of the FCT can decide to extend the tenure of any worker if there’s no one to replace such a worker.
“The talk about non-payment of five months wage award, the payment has started, it’s already on. The talk about promotion allowance and elongation of tenure of Permanent Secretaries is not just the FCT.”
“Things like that are done when you don’t want to disrupt a system that is running and somebody is there and you know that this person’s tenure of office has ended and there is no suitable person to replace him, it’s a normal thing that is done
