After Repeated Complains Over Salaries, Staff Of Public Complaint Commission Lock Up Commissioner In Office

Staff of the Public Complaints Commission, on Wednesday, locked the Chief Commissioner, Abimbola Ayo Yusuf, in the office during a protest over the non-payment of the Consolidated Legislative Salary approved by the National Assembly.

The action of the PCC workers in Abuja was premised on their protest to ventilate their grievances.

In 2021, the Senate upgraded the salary scale of staff of the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) from Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure (CONPASS) to Consolidated Legislative Salary Structure (CONLESS).

Following the failure of the payment, the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN), PCC chapter, on June 2023, directed all staff of the commission nationwide to embark on an indefinite strike.

During Wednesday’s protest, the aggrieved workers refused to open the gate for policemen who were supposedly invited by the PCC management.

Wednesday protest is not the first at the commission.

In June 2023, the staff at the commission’s headquarters protested and put the office under lock and key, and also prevented the commissioner from gaining access to his office.

Reacting to the protest launched last year, the Chairman of PASAN, PCC chapter, Mrs. Margaret Ibeku, disclosed that they had not been paid CONLESS since it was implemented.

Ibeku had said: “We were last year shifted to another salary structure, with effect from October, up till now it has not been implemented.

“Unfortunately for us, because we were moved over to this salary structure, this 40 percent increase in salary, we were also not paid. In fact, we are like people lost in the middle of nowhere. Where we left, we were not paid, where they moved us to, they are not paying us.

“We left from the Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure (CONPASS), the salary structure that covers the majority of the public servants. We were moved over to legislative salary because 12 years ago, we were moved to the National Assembly.

“So our salaries were returned to the salary scale of the national assembly. Now pat us the scale of the National Assembly, they can’t; to pay us the scale of the public service new increase, they still cannot. We are just lost in the middle of nowhere.

“Also, for five years, they cannot pay the promotion arrears of our staff. We have been asking where the money has been going to. They claimed the money was not given to them, but to the best of our knowledge, they had the money.

“There have also been so many failed promises. So, after so many meetings and negotiation, we have to go on strike.”

PCC is Nigeria’s Ombudsman, an organisation that investigates, reports on, and helps settle complaints.