- Appeals for Cost of Living Allowance
THE Federal Workers Forum (FWF) has sent a Save-Our-Soul (SOS) message to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation demanding for Cost of Leaving Allowance (COLA).
According to the Forum in a letter to the Head of Service entitled: “Need for Your Interventions Concerning the Plight of Federal Workers in Nigeria, Pay Cost of Living Allowance (COLA),” it has become necessary to draw attention to challenges confronting working people most critical of which is the erosion of their salaries in the face of rising cost of living and inflation.
In the letter obtained by National Record on Thursday but dated July 5, 2022 and signed by the Forum’s National Coordinator, Comrade Andrew Emelieze, the Forum stated that it has become extremely difficult for workers to make ends meet with many now surviving on borrowing.
The FWF said it is a forum of workers in the federal civil service of Nigeria whose aim is to promote the welfare of workers and their productivity.
The letter reads:
“We write to bring to your attention, some of the challenges confronting us as a working people. Foremost, with a fixed wage, our salaries have been eroded with the rising high cost of living and inflation that we are experiencing in Nigeria. It has been extremely very difficult for us to make ends meet and as such workers have gone borrowing.
“Ma, unfortunately, we noticed that some of our colleagues’ salaries have been stopped as a result of over-borrowing. We are appealing to you to help intervene and temper justice with mercy and help reinstate the salaries of the affected officers in order to prevent a double jeopardy.
“We are also appealing that you help us look into the non-payment of outstanding promotion arrears of workers and their DTA.
“It is also painful to note that workers have been going for promotion interviews and DTA is not paid to them. Of late, most of the workers that did the directorate cadre exams were not paid a single Kobo, despite traveling to Abuja twice for accreditation, examinations and stayed weeks in Abuja.
“It will be just for us to be treated fairly as a working people, hence encouraging productivity. We have instances where backlog of salaries and promotion arrears of over ten years are still owed.
“Ma, there are so many other plights as put forward by the different industrial unions, we therefore call on you to help consider our humble demands and rescue workers from further pains.
“Finally, Ma, we appeal that, in the face of the economic realities on ground in Nigeria, that you consider a Cost of Living Allowance paid to the federal government workers. Our humble suggestion is that we have a 30% of our salaries paid monthly as a monthly Cost of Living Allowance (COLA). We the workers are sending you this proposal and we know that you will agree with us that this is a just proposal.
“The Head of Service Ma, we are appealing to you as our worthy leader and representative of the federal workforce in Nigeria. It is our hope that you help push this our humble request until it gets the desired attention. This is a clarion call, please come to our rescue and ensure that this proposal is achieved in the next one or two months.
“We believe strongly that if you achieve this existential request of a Cost of Living Allowance for federal workers, perhaps it will help swing other employers of labour to doing the same to their workforce thus helping to reduce the general hardship Nigerian workers are going through.”
