Community Leaders Tasks Workers On Farming

A community leader from Erema in the Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of  Rivers State, Chief Dominic Williams, has called on workers to go into farming in order to positively face the challenges of retirement.

Chief Williams who is also the Eze Umuokarakpo of Erema gave the charge last week in his country home. He said, it was sad to see retired workers who had served their fatherland becoming suddenly poor soon after their retirement.

According to him, government and the agencies responsible for processing retirement benefits were not being fair to retired works by not paying them their gratuity as soon as they retire.

He urged workers who know fully well that they would not be paid their gratuity early enough, to own farms to enable them feed themselves and their families instead of waiting for upwards of one year for their gratuities.

Chief Williams who is a self-employed cabinet maker said, at every farming season, he abandons his work and goes to his farm during the period of the season.

This method he said, had over the years proved helpful to him in terms of availability of food for his immediate and extended families.

He explained that workers were at advantage because apart from their yearly leave, they could also set aside a certain sum of money every month for farming purposes.

Chief Williams expressed the view that governments at all levels were not doing enough to make agriculture an employer of labour and that was why he believed that if individuals strive to feed themselves, the nation would have been fed.