Pdp: Soludo Will Clear Water Corporation’s Salary Arrears, Make Water Pipes Run Again

The 56-month salary arrears owed the Anambra State Water Corporation staff will be cleared in less than six months if the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in this week's gubernatorial election in Anambra State , Professor Chukwuma Soludo, wins.

The Soludo administration will also revive the Water Corporation so that it can provide pipe-borne water to the public, the first time in four years.

This pledge is contained in a letter written to the people of Ihiala Local Government Area by the Secretary of the PDP Caretaker Committee in the state, Hon Tony Muobike, on the death of one of the pioneer geologists in Anambra, Pius Nwabugwu, who was a director of the corporation and hailed from the area.

“It is a pity that this distinguished geologist”, said the PDP, “died without receiving his salary or gratuity or pension under the Peter Obi administration”.

Muobike claimed that Mr Nwabugwu was the 14th staff member of the water corporation to die since the payment of workers' salaries and basic allowances became “a tug of war in the state.

“If Mr Nwabugwu and his colleagues had been receiving their entitlements, they perhaps would have been in a position to afford appropriate medical treatment”.

The PDP recalled that Nwabugwu, a classmate of the former chief executive of the Nigerian National Corporation, Jackson Gaius-Obaseki who also joined the NNPC the same day as he, left his lucrative job and cozy home in Ikoyi, Lagos , to join the Anambra State Water Corporation to contribute meaningfully to the development of his home state.

“Even when he did his post graduate studies in the United Kingdom and was offered good jobs as a hydrologist on account of his brilliant performance”, stated the PDP, “he still turned down the offers in order to serve his people in Nigeria on a modest salary and conditions of service.

“Patriots like Mr Nwabugwu do not deserve the treatment they have received at the hands of the All Progressives Grand Alliance government since 2006.”

Continued the letter: “Instead of using public resources to pay salaries and allowances of workers promptly, the APGA government has been using state resources to advertise highly exaggerated accomplishments”.

Muobike said that Anambra employees were the least paid in the federation, with “salaries slightly adjusted recently as an “election gimmick”.

It also deplored the state government's refusal to employ teachers and civil servants in the last four years.