Some civil servants in Cross River State, who have elected to remain anonymous, have complained to www.calitown.com that the state government’s decision to pay December salaries of some civil servants within the first three days of the month will make them suffer afterwards. They were particular that, considering the expenses that normally accompany the coming of January, government should have employed caution by delaying December salary payments to a date not earlier than the last few days of December.
“It will be very difficult to know that your salary is sitting in your account, the yuletide season is here and you will not touch the salary. Our governor may want to score a political point with this payment, I think however that we who are receiving this money stand to lose fiscally when January comes”, one source submitted.
In a rather bizzare twist to this development, www.calitown.com was reliably informed from inside Government House, Calabar, that the governor, Ben Ayade, was advised by a majority of his Executive Council members, to stand down the early payment of the December salary, advice he clearly didn’t take.
However, one of the governor’s aide lamented that “people are so impossible to please. There are states in this country where salaries are not paid as at when due, but in Cross River State, our governor pays salaries and even pays ahead to cater for special occasions like Workers’ Day and this yuletide season…instead of applauding him, some people say he shouldn’t have paid. But let me ask you people, has anyone who collected an alert gone to the bank to instruct that the be paid back to government…absolutely no. We are just a difficult set of people, may God help us”.
While all of this plays out, some teachers in the state are yet to receive a backlog of salaries owed them, just like most pensioners continue to hope on God for payments to them.
