Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, has ordered the immediate reversal of the sack of 20 staff of the State Water Corporation following pressure from organised labour, including a picketing of the Government House.
The affected staff were laid off last week on the orders of the governor’s Special Personal Assistant on Water and Waste Management, Andreas Gebauer.
It was gathered that Gebauer, an Austrian, had sacked the 20 staff in the commercial department of the corporation for alleged non-performance and inability to meet a monthly revenue target of N5 million from water supply subscribers in the state.
The trauma of the sack was said to have led to the tragic death of one of the affected staff, Christopher Abonyi, who was a Director in the corporation and who had put in 34 years of service, two days after he was sacked from service.
But in a turn around, the governor has immediately called for the sacked staff to be reinstated.
Chairman of the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Fabian Nwigbo, and his Trade Union Congress, TUC, counterpart, Ben Asogwa, who addressed workers on Tuesday following the picketing, said Governor Mbah had ordered the reinstatement of the disengaged workers.
“On interaction with the governor, we found out that the sack was not the governor’s directive, he was not even aware of the sack and he directed that everybody should go back to their work. The governor said everybody should maintain peace and tranquility and improve productivity,” Asogwe said.
The state Commissioner for Water Resources, Dr. Felix Nnamani who also reacted to the development, said Gebauer’s sack action was not officially communicated to him as he only heard about it in the media.
“There are civil service regulations, there is the Head of Service who is the administration head of all the civil servants and if any civil servant is found wanting, there are procedures that should be taken before extreme measures; so the unilateral sack of the workers is unknown to the ethics of civil service.
“I urge workers to calm down, it’s regrettable that one of them died two days after he was dismissed and I say condolences to his family, but I’m confident that the governor will do the needful because he is here to build people and not to destroy and he detests injustice.”
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