Mr. Onwuasoanya FCC Jones, a media consultant to former governor of Imo State, and Senator representing Orlu zone, Senator Rochas Okorocha, have written an open letter to Senator Hope Uzodinma following protests by civil servants, over nonpayment of their salaries.
The letter reads as follows;
Dear Governor Uzodimma,
Fourteen months is such a long time not to have been able to fully rectify issues concerning salary payments and pensions.
These protesting teachers could be the breadwinners of their families. They have personal problems to solve and they certainly have many more problems to tackle with money.
A leader must be empathetic. Imagine not being paid salaries for twelve months for a job you have been doing. Imagine getting home everyday to the cries of your children as a result of hunger, imagine having to hide whenever there is a knock on your door, because you are owing a lot of your neighbors and retailers around you. Imagine having malaria and not being able to afford 2000 Naira for drugs. Imagine waking up in the morning without knowing where the next meal is coming from, yet, you have a job. Imagine the life of a mother, a father or a young person, working without receiving salaries for months. Imagine Sir, please imagine what it means to go to bed with an empty stomach.
If truly these teachers have issues with their employment status, please find ways to resolve these issues as a father. Imo schools do not have enough teachers, so, if these teachers do genuinely go to work, but have a few issues with their employment, please order the Ministry of Education to regularize their employment and pay them for these twelve months within which they claim not to have been paid.
If truly, they haven’ t been coming to work, hence, your classification of them as ” ghosts” , then, it is important that the right disciplinary procedures are transparently and fairly followed in punishing them. If an investigation has been conducted in line with civil service rules, and they were found guilty, you may decide to mete out the right punishment to them, you may also as a father decide to grant them amnesty.
Whatever might be the case, please, expedite action towards ensuring that these teachers are paid, and that every civil servant owed, is paid.
MAY IMO WIN!
by Onwuasoanya FCC Jones.
