PATRICK ABANG, Calabar –
Women street sweepers in Cross River State on Wednesday took to the streets to protest over the non payment of their six months salaries.
This is coming barely ten days after the organised labour comprising of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Joint Public Negotiating Council (JNC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Cross River State began their industrial action.
The women who started the protest with a match to the governor’s office chanting “Ayade pay us our salary, hunger will kill us please pay us”, carried fresh leaves along Marian road, Mural Mohammed Highway, saying they are being owed salaries, ranging between N8,000 to N15,000 per month.
The roads were barricaded with logs of woods as they poured waste on the road in protest while chanting solidarity songs, noting that it was unfortunate that the state government has turned deaf ears to their plight despite several pleas.
One of the protesting women who gave her name as Eno said, “this government is wicked. You can see how we suffer on daily basis, sweeping the streets clean yet the government has the mind to owe us. Some of us are widows and it is from this small money that we feed and send our children to school” .
Another woman who simply gave her name as Madam Iquo said, “many of them are really suffering over the meager salary as some of us get as low as N8,000 and we are being owed for six months.
“It is not the best of jobs but we still do it with joy ,why are we still being owed for as much as 6 months especially at this time that things are very hard in the country.We know that the government is releasing money but we are not getting it , unless there is something they are not telling us , because we go through hell while doing our job many of us are being raped in the early hours especially where there are no street lights, it is sad”. She lamented.
Speaking to newsmen on the development, The Executive Secretary of Calabar Urban Development Agency (CUDA), Joe-Mary Ekeng said his office was not in charged, noting that the “Ministry of Environment should know better”
When contacted, The Commissioner of The Ministry of Environment, Mfon Bassey declined to comment on the issue as at the time of filling this report.
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