Open Letter To The Governor Of Benue State, His Excellency Dr. Samuel Ortom

The Plight Of Some Staffs Of The Hospitals Management Board Makurdi, Employed 30^th June 2014 In A Replacement Exercise

Your Excellency sir,
This letter is coming to you four months after our first open letter dated 18^th September, 2015. It is no news we have been employed and neglected for the past eighteen months while we continue to work in the different health facilities we were posted to. Over four months after our first open letter to you, you have remained adamant to our plight and predicament, leaving us in anguish.

It is disheartening to know that an already feeble, ischemic and strangulated health system is handled in such a repulsive manner.

After our employment, we worked under for eleven (11) months under the past administration and for seven (7) months now in your aministration. Within this period we have been paid only April 2015 salary and the payment came between 29^th and 30^th October 2015. We have not been in any way treated as people who are contributing to the health system of the state and we have totally run out of patience. How do we feed with our families? How do we pay our children’s school fees? How do we pay our house rent? How do we settle other compulsory bills and even transport ourselves to work especially amidst the hike in fuel prices and its scarcity?

Your Excellency Sir, you may wish to be reminded that we were employed on 30^th June 2014 and we resumed duty in early July (letters of assumption of duty written and sent to the board). We received our sub-head numbers on the 31st October, 2014 and we completed the pay roll application forms of UBA brought along with the sub-head numbers to our various facilities same day and submitted. We also appeared in the computer room of the ministry of finance on request for the all important bio-metric screening exercise between 27^th and 28^th April, 2015 after which the state government’s staff identity cards were printed and given to us. Ironically, from that moment till date we have been patient in tribulations but law abiding even in our pitiable conditions. When the bail-out funds were accessed, all we received was a month salary. How do we now agree with your usual saying that ‘’a worker deserves his wage’’? Your screening committee has blatantly refused to screen us in the on-going staff verification exercise stating that you have ordered them not to screen us. We are hungry and are beginning to exhibit the characteristics of a hungry man and this is because our peaceful demonstration in the Hospitals Management Board on the 17^th August, 2015 yielded no result.

Our plea to get an audience in the Benue peoples’ house for a round table discussion in August 2015 and even with a follow up reminder to you in September was also turned down. Our quest to having audience for clarifications with our supervisory Ministry, the Ministry of Health has also proven abortive. We however resorted to writing this second letter as law abiding and peace loving citizens of the state.

The most unfortunate of all is the recent demise of one of us, Mr. Terlumum Chia who died on active duty. Until his death, Mr. Chia was a Mechanic/Driver employed legitimately in June 2014. However, Mr. Chia died in the course of contributing his quota to the service of his father land. May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace. Amen.

We are diligent and hard working staffs of Benue State Government who have pledged our unalloyed support to give the better part of our productive lives to the services of the state by working assiduously in improving Health Care delivery to the entire Benue citizenry as encapsulated in the high points of your administration’s blueprint.

While we wait in positive anticipation for your prompt and favourable response, please be assured of our highest esteem and regards.

Signed
Concerned 2014 Employees of Benue State Hospitals Management Board