National Assembly Clerk urges staff not to embark on strike

The Management of the National Assembly on Monday urged the staff not to embark on the planned strike, saying that their concerns were being addressed.

The Clerk to the National Assembly, Mr Mohammed Sani-Omolori made this known in a seven-page letter addressed to the staff through the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) dated Nov. 3.

Our correspondent reports that PASAN at the weekend threatened to picket the National Assembly premises from Tuesday, Dec. 4 over non-payment of outstanding salaries and allowances of its members.

Sani-Omolori expressed concern that despite efforts by the management to address issues raised by them, they still insisted to embark on the planned strike.

On the payment of 28 per cent increase in CONLESS, one of the request by the union, he said a committee made up of management and PASAN had been set up to study, review and advise on the way forward.

He said although the payment was captured in 2018 budget, but the level of implementation in terms of release of funds had made it impossible to pay additional 28 per cent.

“This situation has been well discussed, and I am aware that PASAN officials have investigated and verified this fact from the Federal Ministry of Finance”, he said.

On the non-release of some promotion letters, upgrading, conversion and other establishment matters, he said of the 589 letters of promotion, conversion and upgrading, 562 had been released to beneficiaries.

“The 27 pending ones have issues of promotion into non-existent vacancies, conversion of staff to other cadres in breach of extant guidelines approved by National Assembly Service Commission (NASC).

“Also, there are wrong effective dates of promotion and/or conversion, suspicious career progression records and questions concerning consultancy cadre,” he said.

He expressed concern that PASAN had not exhausted all options before threatening to embark on the strike.

“Your determination to embark on industrial action by all means without exhausting the options available to you is uncalled for.

“Picketing and strike should be the last resort instead of the first in industrial relations,” he said.

He therefore requested PASAN to immediately drop the proposed strike and engage the management on all issues raised in their letter of Nov. 29 sent to the management.