Recently the governor of Imo State ordered the recruitment of about 1,500 university and polytechnic or college of education graduates into the state civil service and the local government areas. At a recent state function presided over by the Secretary to the Government of Imo State (SGI), Sir George Eche, the new civil servants while appreciating their employment, enumerated a number of discrepancies observed to have been perpetuated against them. These, they said include, not receiving their salaries as at when due and poor remuneration against the minimum wage. They appealed to the Imo State governor through the SGI who was a career civil servant to harmonize their salaries.
However what they did not tell Sir Eche and Ifeanyi Onwueyiagba who was recently inaugurated as the States Commissioner for Talent Hunt and Youth Development, was that the newly employed staff deployed to Mbaitoli and Owerri North LGAs, have not been paid for the first time as promised. They were rather offered half of their monthly salaries for December and November 2017 which they promptly rejected. Until last week, no effort had been made to correct the deliberate mistake and pay them appropriately and in accordance with their specific salary grade levels. While their salaries for November and December 2017 were still outstanding, the state government again offered the affected staff half salaries for January 2018, which they also rejected.
Source at Mbaitoli and Owerri North LGAs attested to the fact that whereas similar categories of staff elsewhere have been properly graded and paid full salaries for the months, those posted to the two LGAs of Mbaitoli and Owerri North could not get full salaries indicating that there is discrimination, marginalization and outright stealing of staff salaries in the Imo State civil service. Observers of these obvious acts of cheating and deceit perpetrated by the Rescue Mission administration are wondering why the governor is still coveting the paltry salaries paid to fresh graduates.
