Aged workers lament delayed salaries

Some aged workers

Some aged ad-hoc workers with the Lagos State Waste Management Authority have decried the late payment of their monthly stipends.

The workers, who came in their hundreds to a meeting at the state secretariat, Alausa, with the Ikeja supervising officer of LAWMA, Lawal Sherif, also frowned on the high-handedness of some of the managers.

One of the women, who declined to mention her name, speaking  for the aggrieved workers, said, “We work round the clock despite the fact that majority of us are old and with many responsibilities. Then they ask us to come to work on Saturdays, which we also complied with.

“As if that is not enough, there is a woman that flogs some of the workers if she feels they do not do their jobs to her satisfaction.”

A source who later spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity because she could be sanctioned, said the main grievance of the workers was the late payment of their salaries.

She said the workers, who clear the weed in visible areas on the highways and major roads in Ikeja, were always paid late while some of the workers had not been paid.

She said, “Our main problem with  government is that they pay us late, and they only pay us N10,000 a month.

“For instance, our April salary was paid on May 24, while that of March was paid on April 20. That is how they have been paying us whereas other people in LAWMA are paid much earlier and better. Why the discrimination?”

Sheriff explained to our correspondent that the government moved the workers from the Ministry of the Environment to LAWMA in order to address their grievances.

He said, “We moved them from MOE to LAWMA so government can serve them better. In LAWMA, they are given medication, and they even go on leave.

“To the best of my knowledge, the Managing Director of LAWMA is working restlessly to ensure that they are taken care of. He promised that he would pay their arrears of N2, 000 each from January so they could also earn N12, 000 like other LAWMA ad-hoc workers.”

When asked why the government did not comply with the minimum wage for the workers, he said the people were only being empowered by the state, and could not be considered as civil servants.

PUNCH