…Set To Install Digital Attendance Registers 

Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State has declared a full-scale war against the lateness and absenteeism of workers in the state.

To this end, Soludo announced the installation of digital attendance registers in all the government offices in the state aimed at curbing the malaise.

This was in response to the complaints by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) that some of their members experienced salary deductions due to lateness and absenteeism from work, contending that some of them had their monthly salaries deducted wrongfully.

Disclosing this at this year’s workers’ day celebration, he noted that in the past five years of the Monday sit at home order, workers stayed absent from work, which accounts for 80 per cent of work done while they are being paid 100 per cent at the end of the month.

He observed that even at the end of the stay-at-home order, workers came late to work at around 11 am when they were expected to be at the office by 8.30 am, insisting that this must stop.

“You will not like to hear this or talk about it, but we must talk about it, that for four to five years, workers were paid 100 per cent of their salaries for working 80 per cent.

“One day out of every week is 29 per cent of the week, which is the Monday sit at home, and the Union did nothing about it.

“We pleaded to them, asked for them to look at it, and how we can then move if only we work for four days a week?

“But while it lasted, everybody was paid 100 per cent while you worked 80 per cent based on the assumption that the rest of the other four days, people went to work.

“There are ongoing conversations that on Thursdays and Fridays,  we hear of one person who is sick who went to the hospital or that the workers attended funeral ceremonies.

Soludo called for a meeting on the matter, contending that enough is enough.

“I think that we must have a serious conversation about work because even those in the public service tell me that it was bad, but it has gotten much worse now, and we need to address it and contest it; otherwise, there is no point.

“Are we paid enough? Never. Why is it that I rejected what I was supposed to be paid when I came into the saddle, and I was told what was going to be paid, and I said no!

“About a million or so, and I said if I add it in a year, it is less than a small percentage of what I pay my staff in the state the previous years, and I said, is it just to say that I am being paid a salary and said hold it.

“Yet even that peanut that you are being paid, you have to earn it, and you must work for it.

“Aside from the Mondays, how about other days that I visited the offices and in a hall of nine persons, I saw only two persons, and I asked where the others they told me that they are on their way and that is at around 11 am in the morning, when the work is to start by 8.30 am.

“And by 4 pm, they will still be on their way, and even on Monday, some of them come sign their names and leave, and that is not the change that we want.

“It cannot work that way, you cannot and you can’t have a system that way because when you are pointing one finger the other fingers are pointing at you so what have you done as a Union to make sure that the workers also as you are demanding for entitlements that the workers themselves are delivering services? ”

“If that is true, you can say we have done our own part, but not when you are abdicating your own duty, and that means that society can’t move “he said.

Soludo, however, announced that a technology is going to be put in place, which has to do with digital attendance registration, which is aimed at ensuring the number of those that came to work on every workday.

“We are going to design technology for attendance of workers to work, and it will record when you come to work and when you leave your office.

“The technology would come, and I assure you that it is a learning point for what and how much you earn.

“If you choose to work for two days good for you, and if you want to come to work for five days, it’s your choice.

“The Union would be at the forefront of the implementation Committee for monitoring the absence or attendance to work for our public servants.

“If there are people who have claims of wrongful deductions due to lateness or absenteeism, we shall go to verify those claims, and if it is true, we shall do the needful,” he said.

Speaking earlier the Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Comrade Humphrey Emeka Nwafor, noted that this year’s theme for Workers Day is Security and Poverty lamenting that the rate of insecurity across the country is affecting productivity and service to the society.

Nwafor urged the relevant authorities in the area of security to be alive to their responsibilities, adding that the lingering issue is a disservice to the Nation.