Covid-19 Lockdown, Delayed Payment of Workers’ Salary and Food in Imo State Civil Service, Nigeria

Abstract

The study is to examine the effect of covid-19, delayed payment of workers salary on food in Imo state civil service, Nigeria. The outbreak of covid-19 brought the world to a halt via lockdown order and altered the lifestyle of people globally. Amidst that, it distorted payment of workers salary and constituted great challenges to their well-being despite the directives from Ministry of Finance Budget and National Planning to ensure continuous payment of workers salary no matter the impact of covid-19 on the economy. It is from the foregoing that the objectives of the study were drawn. Specifically, the study was to ascertain the extentcovid-19 lockdown amidst delayed payment of workers salary has impeded affordability of food in Imo state civil service, Nigeria. The study adopted survey research. Stratified random sampling by proportional procedure was used. The sample size of 637 civil servants was drawn from the total population of 6370. Four point Likert scale and mean scores of the responses were used to analyze data.Secondary sources of data were employed largely from journals, textbooks, newspapers, web pages and government documents. To complement it the questionnaire was used as primary source. Game theory was adopted as the theoretical umbrella. The findings show that, to a significant extent workers could not afford garri, bread, rice, beans, yam, plantain, palm oil, vegetable, meat, fish, chicken etc. The study recommends for control of prompt payment of workers salary, introduction of price control mechanism and subsidized credit to workers for livestock production.