| The Daily Crucible | Saturday, April 23, 2022
By Godwin Akomah, Umuahia
A member of Abia State House of Assembly, Mazi Obinna Ichita, has expressed worry over the reported 12 months salary arrears owed staff of the state's Health Management Board, describing the manner the affected health workers were being treated by governor Victor Okezie Ikeazu - led government as "despicable."
Mazi Ichita who noted that the state government was subtly sentencing the citizens to their early graves through non payment of their salaries, called on governor Ikpeazu snd the Deputy Governor, Sir Ude Oko Chukwu, to resign for failure or unwillingness to pay workers' salary.
The leader of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Abia State, also demands that the state Commissioner for Health, commissioner for finance and the Accountant General be relieved of their positions by the state Governor.
The lawmaker who stated this in a release made available to The Daily Crucible, lamented that while Abians continued to suffer from failure of the state government to provide them with basic infrastructure, the same government under the watch of governor Okezie Ikpeazu had also "literarily abandoned its duty of protection of lives and properties."
He added that the "government is fixated on the politics of 2023."
According to him, the 2023 election in Abia State will be a referendum; where the people will have an opportunity to make an informed choice between bad governance and good governance.
Hon. Ichita also called on all men of good conscience at home and diaspora to rise and demand immediate explanation from Abia state government on why workers in the health management board and indeed in other agencies and establishments in Abia state were being owed many months of salary arrears at a time the state equally received revenues from a plethora of sources other than the statutory allocation from the federation account.
The release reads in part, "The Abia state Commissioner for Health, the commissioner for finance as well as the Accountant General of Abia State should be relieved of their positions by the state Governor. This is because health workers are essential service providers, hence effort must be sustained at all times to ensure that the health of the citizens are not jeopardized in any manner, form or shape.
"It follows that the condition of service of essential workers should always receive priority attention from any responsible government. That the salaries of these and other workers in Abia State have not been paid in the last 12 months is not only a demonstration of gross administrative ineptitude, it is also a sin before God.
"If the Governor of Abia State for any reason, is not willing and ready to do the needful by instilling the needed sanity in the health sector in our dear state, then the Governor, the deputy Governor and other political office holders elected under the platform of the ruling party in, who watched in silence while this gross negligence and inhuman treatment of our health workers in Abia continued, should resign their positions.
"But we know that like all known oppressors recorded in history, they will not accept this honest advice, the best thing is for the masses to force them out using our votes when the time comes.
The people of Abia state must take back our state
"The government of Abia state has literarily abandoned its duty of protection of lives and properties and is fixated on the politics of 2023."
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