The Governor of Ebonyi State, Chief David Umahi, has warned chairmen of the thirteen local government areas of the state against giving all their money to workers in the name of minimum wage.
Umahi made this known on Monday at the exco-chambers government house Abakaliki during the swearing-in of permanent secretaries.
He charged council chairmen to do their home work very well before involving labour.
According to him: “All is not well with the buildings at the Centenary City but gradually we will make the area a comfortable place. I am happy when people are comfortable, including putting air-conditioners in the buildings. Even the lifters are not even ready.
“I have told the head of service that all civil servants in the ministries must move to the centenary city, including the ministry of works, ministry of finance and so many others must move to the centenary city.
“When you move, you can create a board room where you can be doing meetings. We are trying to come up with a canteen in that place, so that people can eat their.
“We will use bulldozer to bring down some places and put full light, so that when the new three government houses emerge, and there will be cleaning of grasses in that place.
“I said within two weeks, let’s put it at the end of this month, that all ministries including ministry of finance must all move out.
“The committee on minimum wage must come up with something to us, but I want the ministry of Local Government to know that the weakest link is the Local government.
“The multiplicity of workers is the challenge to the Local government. And so, we will start from placing N30,000 minimum wage to the list paid worker at the local government areas.
“ALGON should not use every thing they have to pay labour. You don’t know how the economy is going. Last month, we got less than N800million, different from what we got previous months. And so, when you start to pay, then you must continue to pay, whether the allocation is going up or down.
“The workers will not known, all they wants is for them to be paid. It is better, you first do your home work without involving labour,” he said.
