Akeredolu meets workers, promises committee on outstanding salaries

Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State on Monday pledged to constitute a committee to look into the seven months outstanding salaries of workers left behind by the previous administration.

Akeredolu made the pledge when he met with workers at the Governor’s Park in Akure.

“I can feel your suffering,’’ the governor told the workers, assuring them that the matter would be promptly addressed by setting up the committee, which would come out with ways to solve the problem.

Akerdolu said that workers’ welfare would be given utmost priority by his administration.

He appealed to striking health workers to exercise patience, return to work and come to the table for dialogue, to solve the problem on ground.

“I know you have reasons for your strike; it must be out of your concern for your patients, out of your concern for the people of the state and not out of your concern for your pockets,’’ Akeredolu said.

The governor, however, said the state could not afford to have its health workers on strike, as they remained major stakeholders in the civil service.

He urged the workers to cooperate with the new government and support it to succeed in all its endeavours, promising to be receptive to their suggestions and ideas.

“Our administration will grow a civil service that will be envy of all by training and re-training of workers that will later enhance our productivity,” the governor said.

Akeredolu said that his administration would revive dead industries such as Cocoa Processing Industry, Idanre and the Rubber Plantation in Araromi, Odigbo, within the next two years.

Also speaking at the meeting, the Head of Service in the state, Mr.Toyin Akinkuotu, promised the governor that the entire workforce was ready to support him in his assignment.

“Civil servants play an important role in governance; they are critical to government, and success of government will be determined by their roles,” he said.

Akinkuotu appealed to the governor to promptly look into the issue of their outstanding salaries.

According to him, things have not been easy for the workers in the state in the last seven months.

Newsverge reports that Akeredolu, of the All Progressives Congress, was sworn in as governor on Friday, succeeding Dr Olusegun Mimiko of the Peoples Democratic Party.