The ex-workers of the Nigeria Airways are full of smiles as they will soon be receiving alerts for the payment of their severance benefits as the verification exercise for the payment has kick started in Lagos.
Many of the ex-workers abroad flew into the country to complete the exercise with thousands of others turning up for the exercise.
The Skypower Catering office today was filled to capacity as the moved from one table to another registering their names before biometric capture by officials of the Ministry of Finance in the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit, PICA.
The ex-staff said they were happy that after 15 years to reap the fruit of their labour.
“we are very happy that after 15 years we will be paid for our sweat, we are rejoicing and we thank God for this day that he has used President Buhari and the Minister of Finance to help, to pay us”.
Some deceased family members whose father or mother died recently did not find it easy completing their verification because they did not have letter of administration from the High court, they were advised to get the letter before the exercise ends so that the names of their dead loved ones could be included on the list for payment.
Head of the Ministry of Finance, PICA office, Mr. John Ytono said the challenge of managing the crowd and ensuring that the system for the biometric capture was linked to the two centers being used in other parts of country.
“This is just the first day, we expect this to be like this, we are trying to expand to accommodate our officers so we can attend to more people at a time so we can meet our target of 1,000 in a day”.
Chairman, Elders Forum, Airways Workers, Engineer Godwin Jibodu said today’s exercise was significant because many of their members who were sick and in the hospitals that did not have money to cater for their health can now do so after being paid.
“Over 800 of our members have died, may are in the hospital bedridden, they do not have money to buy drugs but with this money, they can treat themselves”.
Chairman, Aviation Grand Alliance, Comrade Lookmon Animashaun said the exercise was going on smoothly, adding that about the 4,000 members that would be cleared in Lagos have been divided into batches to effectively manage the crowd.
