The Public Complaints Commission (PCC) has shut down operations nationwide due to its inability to pay workers’ salaries, Premium Times reports.

The commission is saddled with the responsibility of addressing complaints from citizens.

The chairperson of the commission’s workers union, Dorcas John said workers have been receiving only 50% of their salaries since the beginning of this year.

“We have been having issues of non-payment of salaries from January till now. They slashed our budget by 50 per cent. Both overheads, capital and everything. It’s no longer funny. Staff can no longer pay their children’s school fees. They pay us only about 40 per cent or sometimes 50 per cent and thereabouts of our salaries.

“As we speak, we have written a circular which was distributed through all the states of the federation. We have ordered that all our offices in states of the federation be shut down,” she said.

According to her, the commission started having setbacks after the Federal Government put it under the control of the National Assembly.

“I am just returning from the National Assembly where I told them that there is a conspiracy between them, (National Assembly), Budget Office and the Ministry of Finance.

“We were under the presidency and during that period, this never happened. But they said we are an Ombudsman organisation (a government agency that investigates complaints by private persons against the government). They said that all over the world, ombudsmen are always under the parliament, so they hijacked us and put us under the National Assembly,” she said.

Azeez