The Chairman Anambra State Chapter of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN), Comrade Abraham Onyebuchi Okoye, says legislative staff serving at the Anambra State House of Assembly are facing hell judging from the blight cast on them due to blatant disregard of their welfare and conditions of service.
Okoye who spoke exclusively with our correspondent on the plight of House of Assembly workers, complained that lawmakers were only interested in pressing and pushing for increments in their constituency funds and other allowances whereas assembly workers’ allowances that have continued to appear in the Budget since 2019 have been abandoned without implementation, reports Saturday Independent.
He said Anambra House of Assembly workers work with archaic materials and they face all manner of hazards ranging from killing very big snakes, scorpions and other dangerous reptiles inside the assembly complex due to a sprouting forest behind the legislative complex.
The Anambra PASAN chairman recalled an unfortunate incident where one of the legislative staff was attacked and had his head broken with blood gushing out profusely during one of the impeachment saga in the House of Assembly.
He was however of the opinion that the House of Assembly workers’ strike will continue until the authorities recognized that they were human beings with fundamental rights and privileges that should be respected and not ignored or disregarded.
Again, the Anambra PASAN chairman maintained that the clandestine move by the lawmakers to engage the services of corps members to replace the striking assembly workers will not work because anybody can not come from the blues to do the job of a legislative staff.
According to him, the threat to redeploy the striking assembly workers to other ministries and agencies of government won’t hold water because they have the backing of their national body and it has also been established that no one involved in the struggle will be victimised.
He lamented that it is only Anambra State that care less about the welfare and conditions of service of House of Assembly workers. That other states in the Southeast region and the entire federation have long taken the welfare of legislative staff as topmost priority.
Okoye said that one of their members disclosed that the leadership of the House was already making arrangements to engage youth corpers and that at some point, the lawmakers had to use the House of Assembly canteen operator to switch on the generator instead of the civil servant employed for that purpose.
Okoye recalled that during Peter Obi’ regime constituency allowance for lawmakers was N10 Million. He said later it was moved to N15 Million, N20 Million and N30 Million respectively. That ex-governor Willie Obiano further increased it to N35 Million annually.
Although he said Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo brought the constituency allowance to N30 Million annually but the House, according to him, has made a move for their constituency allowance to be upgraded to N50 Million annually coupled with other entitlements accruing to the lawmakers whereas nothing is done about the allowances of assembly workers.
He said that as at today, the only operational vehicle for the 29 Standing Committees of the House of Assembly was bought in 2007 and that its counterparts in the ministries have long been abandoned and no longer in use.
He also added that the Budget performance of the House of Assembly has been less than 10% in the last 10 years as the only money that comes to the House of Assembly are the entitlements and constituency project funds for the lawmakers while legislative staff are left to mourn their fate.
The PASAN chairman therefore stated categorically that what they were doing by the strike action was to make a bold statement that they were not useless and that they have capacity and that Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo should pay them their allowances already being enjoyed by other states.
Although he made it clear that they were not out to fight the Governor or the Speaker of the House nor being sponsored politically but the fact remains that they are fighting for their legitimate right and they are not afraid of victimizations.
Meanwhile the lawmakers representing Onitsha-South one, Ihiala one and two and Orumba-North constituencies, when contacted by this journalist on the alleged clandestine move by the House to engage the services of corps members to replace the striking assembly workers, said categorically that they were not aware of such development.
Also the Press Secretary to the Speaker, Mr. Emma Madu did not respond to phone calls from this journalist to confirm or deny if the leadership of the House of Assembly planned to engage corps members to replace striking legislative staff and also redeploy them to other ministries.
