Adhoc workers of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Anambra State, have staged a peaceful protest over non-payment of stipends after the just concluded general elections.
The adhoc workers, who include Collation Officers, Supervisory Presiding Officers, SPOs, among others, staged the protest at the state headquarters of INEC in Awka.
Members of the group, who were visibly angry at the delay in payment of their stipends, besieged the INEC headquarters long before the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Mrs. Queen Agwu, arrived at her office for the day’s work.
In an interview, some of the adhoc workers, including Dr Chidebele Obi and Lady Theresa Mgbatogu, said most of them have not been paid for the election duty they carried out since March 2023.
They wondered why no single person among them have not been able to authenticate INEC’s claim that they have been paid, asking INEC, which claimed that it has paid all the adhoc workers, who they paid?
Contributing, Dr Ikechukwu Ekemezie, another adhoc staff, explained that election duty is a national call which they answered, risked their lives to work and are now registering their grievances over the failure of INEC to pay them, calling on relevant authorities to reach out to the electoral umpire to pay them for the duty they carried out.
Speaking to the ABS, Dr. Mrs. Agwu, reiterated that INEC has paid over fifty-thousand adhoc staff, who they employed for the election and stressed that some of the accounts provided by some of workers were bouncing back because there were irregularities in the account details and phone numbers they supplied.
The REC, who revealed that INEC is carrying out mop up exercise, admonished the aggrieved workers to visit their banks to verify the payment and get statement of account from their banks and visit INEC for clarifications.
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