Staff members of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment who were employed in 2017 are being owed salary arrears for October, November and December 2017, as well as January and February 2018.

EQ learnt that, although 373 of them were employed on July 26, 2017, the date of assumption on the affected staff members’ employment contract read September 25, 2017, and that the ministry had directed them to resume in March 2018.

“Some of us who were employed in 2017 haven’t been paid our arrears. Our date of assumption was September 25, 2017, but we only started receiving payment in March the following year,” a staff member at the ministry, who pleaded anonymity, told EQ on Sunday.

“We ought to have started work immediately, but we received deployment instructions in March. This means that although the ministry had yet to allocate duty posts to us, we were already staff members of the ministry by virtue of the assumption date of September 2017, as stated in our employment contracts.”

He also told EQ that his fellow employees had applied for the payment of their salary arrears on different occasions, but the ministry still failed to pay them their arrears.

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In December 2020, the Federal Ministry of Finance released a circular directing all ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government whose staff members were owed promotion and salary arrears to forward their requests for promotion and salary arrears through the director-general of the Budget Office of the Federation for necessary action.

Circular issued by the Federal Ministry of Finance in 2020.

Acting upon the directive of the Federal Ministry of Finance contained in the circular, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment directed its staff members who were owed salary arrears to submit hard copies of their employment letters, stamped documentation of assumption of duty and a copy of their first payslip.

Memo issued by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment in 2021.

The affected staff members provided all the requested documents and the ministry compiled their names in a 20-page document comprising 373 names.

It has been three years since this directive was issued and their arrears are still being withheld.

EQ emailed the ministry on Thursday, but they did not respond.

The ministry had not responded to EQ at press time.
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