Kogi House of Assembly member representing Mopa-Muro constituency, Mr Obaro Pedro, has called for the reinstatement of some 270 staff members of Mopa-Muro Local Government, sacked in December 2013.
In a motion of Urgent Public Importance at plenary on Friday, Pedro implored the house to direct the council to reinstate the workers and pay their outstanding salaries to date.
Pedro said that there was urgent need to look into the plight of the 270 council staff members employed in July 2010, and sacked in December 2013 over zero-allocations.
He said that many of the affected staff members could hardly feed themselves and their families since then.
The legislator said that their children could no longer go to school as they had to drop out due to lack of funds to attend to their educational needs, aside other family and domestic commitments.
He explained that shortly after the sack in the 21 Local Government Areas of the state in 2013, Kogi House of Assembly issued a resolution directing the council to reinstate the workers.
According to him, other local councils in the state heeded the directive and reinstated the workers with the exception of Mopa-Muro which stood its ground and stopped payment of their salaries and allowances.
Seconding the motion, the Deputy Speaker, Mr Aliyu Akuh (PDP-Omala), frowned at the flagrant refusal of the local government council to comply with the house resolution on the matter.
“The house, comprising representatives of the people, is concerned about their suffering and is determined to put an end to the arbitrary laying off of staff,’’ he said. Ruling on the matter, the Speaker, Alhaji Momoh-Jimoh Lawal, directed the house standing committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and Public Service to investigate it and report back within two weeks. (NAN)
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