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The management of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said there was no justification for the current strike action by staff of the agency, as most of their demands have either been addressed or currently being addressed.
A statement by Head Media and Public Relations, Sani Datti, said an agreement was reached in September last year between the Management and the Staff Union, which provides for settlement of outstanding Overtime Allowances that predated the appointment of the present Director General, hence that was settled.
NEMA’s headquarters was last week shut by the local branch of the Association of Senior Civil Servant of Nigeria (ASCSN).
Datti said the reasons for the ASCSN action were later discovered to have arisen from issues related to operations of vehicles, the Agency’s Aircrafts and some issues that have already been addressed during the industrial action embarked by the association in September, 2017.
Datti added that staff annual training for 2017 have been concluded and the 2018 training schedule have been approved by the management and implementation has commenced, adding that many staff have so far completed their 2018 annual training.
“As for the payment of DTAs and other claims, which have accrued (since 2015) are being released in batches, and considerable progress have been made on them”, he said
He added that following last year’s agreement, the Vice Chairman and Treasurer of ASCSN have also been redeployed to the headquarters as part of the agreement.
Datti said on ‘Women Separated from their Families’, the management has responded to all request of redeployment by married women of the agency.
“The NEMA Management sat with the official of the local Unit of the ASCSN in at least two (2) occasions, and the last was an address, made at the instance of the ASCSN official of NEMA, by the management to a large number of the Headquarters’ staff. In addition to this, the National body of the ASCSN has been fully informed of the progress, most recently in a letter written on 6th June, 2018,” he said.
Datti said all the areas of disagreement/agreement have been addressed and therefore the management did not see the connection of the last strike to the present one called by officials of the local branch of ASCSN.
According to Datti, a resolution was reached that the vehicular barricade should be removed and another meeting rescheduled to Tuesday, June 19, 2018.
DAILY TRUST