Kwara State COVID-19 Workers Protest Against Non-Payment Of Over N22million Allowances
Adedokun Waliyu 
The state health agency secured the services of the ad-hoc staff in August 2022 and promised to pay them N22,500 every two weeks for a three-month period they agreed to work with the agency to vaccinate state residents for the Coronavirus pandemic.
No fewer than 1000 ad-hoc staff who worked for the Kwara State Primary Health Care Development Agency COVID-19 vaccination teams were yet to be paid over N22million allowance, SaharaReporters has gathered.
The state health agency secured the services of the ad-hoc staff in August 2022 and promised to pay them N22,500 every two weeks for a three-month period they agreed to work with the agency to vaccinate state residents for the Coronavirus pandemic.
SaharaReporters learned that the workers worked for at least six weeks between the 7th of August, 2022 and the 30th of October, 2022 before the agency told them to stop.
During exclusive interviews, some of them told SaharaReporters that the Kwara State Primary Health Care Development Agency only paid them for two weeks out of the six weeks they worked and that all efforts to get the relevant stakeholders to pay them were futile.
“We are thousands in numbers. We started the work on August 7 and they say we’re going to do the work for 3months that they will be paying 22,500 naira per two weeks they only pay for two weeks and we have done more than that 2 weeks, we stopped the work by October,” one of the workers said.
Going by mathematical calculation, each of the thousands ad-hoc staff was owed nothing less than N22,500, allowance for a two-week job, which is amount to over N22 million rough estimation.
Speaking further on how this situation has affected his personal life, he said, “It has caused many issues and problems for me because I used to borrow money for transport fee, unable to pay now because I have many debts.
“I am a pregnant woman and with a child upon that I will be trekking inside the sun for us to meet their targets. We are pleading with them to pay us all my unpaid debit,” he said.
Another worker explained how the non-payment of the allowances had rendered him insolvent.
He said, “The money as I have planned would have helped me a greater length upon completion of my programme but then, I was forced to loan money from LAPO which currently now they have taken and all those electronics I used as collateral.”
“I have budgeted the money to start my shop because I believe that if they pay us the way they say they will be paying us for 3months I will start a Small scale business on it, that is my plan on the money,” another worker, who identified himself as Aduagba added.
This situation is not only peculiar to Kwara, SaharaReporters had also reported that COVID-19 health workers who were brought in as volunteers with the Lagos State BioBank were in distress going by the failure of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s administration to pay their N42million allowances since June 2022.
The workers had told SaharaReporters in separate interviews that despite repeated requests to the authorities, the state government had been unresponsive to their issue and had made several failed promises.
