Confusion In Edo Over Salaries Of State Owned Colleges

By Patrick Ochoga Edo State government has
reiterated that no worker in the state is owed salary,
saying that December salary was paid before Christmas
Day. Reacting to the coalition of tertiary institutions
workers who protested along major streets in Benin in
December 2015 demanding for their five months
salaries owed them by the Edo State government, the
state commissioner for Education, Gideon Obakhan
said the state government does not owe any of its
workers, including workers of the state owned tertiary
institutions. Gideon Obakhan, said yesterday while
interacting with some journalists on the issues that
Edo State government is one of the few states in
Nigeria today that have been able to pay salaries. “The
issue with the coalition of tertiary institutions union is
between them and their management. Every month
the state government gives subvention to these
institutions and they are expected to also generate
revenue internally to be able to run the schools. “I
think it is either misunderstandings on how these
institutions are run on the part of the coalitions or
people are just trying to be mischievous. “It is untrue
that the ministry have not intervened in the crisis
between the union and their management. We have
had series of meetings in my office where they
appealed for support and bailout and in December last
year, close to the Christmas period, the governor, in
order to reduce the pressure on the workers who
were saying the schools have not paid them, approved
a bailout for themhttp://leadership.ng