Anambra Governor Soludo threatens to cut salaries of workers who skip work due to sit-at-home order

Governor Soludo issued the threat on May 1, 2023, while addressing Anambra State workforce at the May Day Workers celebration held at Dr. Alex Ekwueme Square, Awka, the state capital. He stated that the Monday sit-at-home had become an excuse for workers to avoid working on Mondays and warned that it could not continue.

The Governor, who recently increased workers’ salaries by 10 percent, said that workers cannot work for only four days a week and earn full salaries. He stated, “If we do not go to work, we must not get our full salary. We must be paid proportionally to the number of days we work. If we must continue not attending work on Monday, we must direct Saturday work” (Punch, 2022).

Governor Soludo added that the state government had been running on a N88 billion budget deficit for the past one year. He explained that the 2023 budget was predicated on N4 billion internally generated revenue every month, but the state has been generating only N2 billion. He further stated that the state government was supposed to be receiving N5 billion from the federal government, but it was getting less (Punch, 2022).

Governor Soludo urged the workers to work towards generating revenue to the state government in order to take care of the workers’ welfare and other pressing issues in the state. He also disclosed that there was pressure on him to increase salaries and downsize the workforce and urged labour leaders to study the proposal (Punch, 2022).