Emerging report indicates that Environmental workers in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, have on Thursday, threatened to shut down all public Cemeteries in Abuja, if the FCT Administration fails to meet their demands.
The workers had closed the Gudu Cemetery, over the failure of the FCT Administration to implement a new salary structure for them.
Muktar Bala, the Chairman of the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporation, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees, AUPCTRE, in a statement, said that although the Union has agreed to reopen some Cemeteries, it would shut down all their services, if their demands are not met.
Bala lamented the attitude of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration towards the welfare of the workers, despite their exposure to several health hazards while handling abandoned corpses.
He said exactly: “People think it is only waste management that we do. They do not know that even unclaimed corpses in Hospitals are taken care of by us.
“We take care of dead bodies that have overstayed in the hospitals for three to four years, without knowing what killed them.
“Hospitals come to us when they want mass burial for such dead bodies. If there are unclaimed or unknown corpses either on the roads or elsewhere, Police will write reports and bring them to us for burial.
“All these hazards, they do not look at it that we are doing anything. We want to tell the administration that apart from managing the solid waste, we do other things.”
The workers, however, said that due to the calls from the School residency, they agreed to reopen the Cemetery, but we will shut it down if their agreement is not met in due time.
Bala added: “Based on the decision taken Wednesday night, by the joint Unions of AEPB, we agreed to open the Cemetery by 9am, Thursday, due to calls from the Presidency.”
He added that if the agreement is not met, they will not only shut down the Cemeteries, but all their systems and operations.
More news later…
