Delta Assembly shut down as workers resume suspended strike

·      Passage of Okowa’s 2017 state budget may suffer delay

Signs that the 2017 budget proposal of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa presented to the Delta State House of Assembly last Thursday may suffer some delay in passage emerged when the workers locked up the gates to the assembly to protest unresolved welfare issues due to them.

Rt. Hon. Monday Igbuya, Speaker DTHA

State Chairman of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN), Comrade Edozie Emmanuel told journalists that the workers called the strike as a continuation of the strike that was suspended in February 2016 because the leadership of the State House of Assembly has not responded to the demands of the workers since the strike was suspended.

Accordingly, staffers of the Assembly and the Assembly’s service commission stayed away from work in obedience to the directives of the PASAN leaders. The two gates leading to the Assembly Complex were sealed with keys, while the union leaders stationed at the gate to monitor effective compliance by workers. Also, the police with two of their vehicles are stationed at the gate to keep the peace.

On the contending issues and reasons for the resumption of strike, Comrade Edozie Emmanuel said: “Apart from imprest and running cost, the four main items on demand include funding of our clinic, appointment of deputy Clerk, payment of outfit allowance and payment of outstanding death benefits of deceased staffs.”

He said having sent a letter of notification of a planned strike to the speaker if nothing was done to meet their demands, he explained that copies of the letter was given to the Clerk, and all the principal officers of the House about two weeks ago. And that since then, nothing was done to meet with the union executives. “We decided in line with congress resolution after two weeks of sending our letter to the and we did not get any response from them, we have no option than to resume our earlier suspended strike.

“We suspended our earlier strike February last year. When we suspended the strike last year, we did a Memorandum of Understanding , which the then state Exco of the workers signed with the Speaker, and since then nothing has been done.  Explaining the importance of the four main items on the workers’ demand list, Comrade Edozie Emmanuel said: “The first is the House of assembly clinic that has no drugs in the staff clinic. They said there is no money. It is affecting staffs. As aresult we lost two staffs last week. In the past two months we’ve lost about four staffs. And what is happening is not good for the system. Even if they cannot do all, let some drugs be provided for the clinic because you cannot leave that place empty.

“Also, we need another doctor in that clinic because only one doctor is servicing the assembly staffs, the Honourable members and their relatives and the Assembly Service Commission staffs. As we talk now there is no drug in that clinic.”

Edozie continued: “The second issue is the appointment of a deputy clerk. Last year our deputy clerk retired, and since then, we’ve been singing this son. Appoint a deputy clerk, there can’t be a vacuum in the system. And there is a law passed by this house for that position. They said it is not our matter, but we said you are appointing a staff and not a politician.

“The third is the outfit allowance; it is a yearly ritual, and something that has existed over the years. It is for the staffs of the legislative houses across the nation; they receive outfit allowance and special duty allowance. And we’ve been on this outfit allowance. We asked that the Speaker should send the file to the governor, but the story has been no money, no money. Yet it is something that touches the workers because it is important to them.  

“The fourth issue is that a lot of our staffs have died and in the rules the government is supposed to cater for certain things. When someone dies in active service the rule is that some burial expenses are supposed to be borne by government. But we now see in the Delta state House of Assembly that when someone dies it is the family that now shoulders the entire burial responsibilities. Memos are written, sometimes they are approved, yet nothing is done. This has continued since 2008. Persons that have died far back 2008, the government has failed to carry out its due diligence on them. If you cannot enjoy life while living, even the government cannot do what it is supposed to do for them?”

Asked how long the strike will last, Comrade Edozie Emmanuel said it will last as long as it takes the speaker  to meet with the workers’ union leaders for dialogue on the issues in question. “We are more interested in the resolution of this matter. How long it will last will depend on how long it will take the Speaker to call us for dialogue,” the PASAN leader said.