The staff audit carried out in the local government system in Ekiti State is to save a whopping sum of N757 million annually.
The Commissioner for Information an Civic Orientation, Mr. Funminiyi Afuye, who made the revelation on Tuesday while speaking on a live programme on ADABA 88.9 FM, also appealed to the striking local government workers to accept the government’s olive branch and return to work.
While emphasising that the Kayode Fayemi administration has no intention to sack any local government worker, Afuye restated the
readiness of the government to commence immediate payment of minimum wage to council workers as soon as their bank accounts are verified.
Reeling out statistics on the outcome of the biometric exercise, Afuye disclosed that a total number of 1,323 workers are benefiting
illegally from the local government system.
He noted that physical headcount revealed a total number of 19,258 personnel in the local government system after which two rounds of biometric counting of workers was carried out.
The commissioner explained that the initial biometric counting gave a figure of 19,212 workers while the last biometric counting of workers revealed a figure of 17,889 workers.
Afuye said that the last two biometric exercises revealed that a total number of 1,323 persons are drawing salaries illegally from the local government system which costs the government over N63 million monthly and N757 million annually.
He contended that N757 million would assist the Fayemi-led administration to do a lot of developmental projects adding that the
financial implication was too much to bear in view of limited resources available.
Afuye also revealed that 1,756 council workers with education-related certificates will be deployed to schools while 4,669 health workers in the councils will now be working with the state Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA).
The government spokesman who maintained that the council workers did not follow due process before going on strike stated that the
administration was still magnanimous in engaging them in negotiation before they resorted to industrial action.
Afuye stressed that the staff audit which had been carried out in the core civil service was not meant to witch-hunt any council worker but to restore efficiency, probity, accountability, transparency and to reduce redundancy in the local government system.
He said, “We have discovered disparity and discrepancies in the number of staff on the payroll of the government in the local government system.
“The governor has reiterated it on many occasions that we have no plan to sack anybody and government is going to pay the arrears of the minimum wage but all these issues have to be resolved first.
“”Ekiti State has limited resources which must be used for the welfare of the ordinary man on the street and since we have now completed the biometric exercise, we are appealing to the local government workers to go back to work and ensure a proper verification of their account detals.
“We want them to accept the government’s olive branch because we are assuring them that we are not going to sack anybody.
“We urge them to go back to work and collect their salaries while we continue our negotiations”.
Last modified: November 7, 2012