I won’t sack genuine workers – Gov Bello

KOGI State governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, on Wednesday, said no worker of the state would be unjustly sacked following the completion of the screening exercise embarked upon to determine the actual size of the state workforce.

Apart from this, the governor has also ordered the payment of the September and October salaries of all 43,909 state and local government workers already cleared by the screening committee.

The chairman of the screening exercise review committee, Alhaji Yakubu Okala, who is also the auditor-general of the state, disclosed this to newsmen in Lokoja, said the committee had already completed work on the screening.

He said the governor had also directed that those being owed salary from January till date and had genuine cases should be paid their salaries.

He however stated that many of the people accusing the state government of owing them salaries from January were those already indicted by the screening committees, who had been handed over to the security agencies.

He said the review exercise carried out by his committee further uncovered many rot, including people with fake results, saying that the governor would at appropriate time release the figure of the people in this category.

Okala said that his committee had been able to established 43, 909 as genuine workers at both state and local government levels, saying that the figure of over 66,000 workers arrived at in August by the screening and verification committee was fraught with irregularities .

He however said only few out of those being owed salary from January to October would be reabsorbed into service while many of them would go, adding that the affected workers include those found guilty of working with fake certificates, falsification of age, double collection of salary and other criminal offences.

Okala said that work had commenced on payment of November salary to the workers, saying that all payments will be concluded within the next two weeks.

He said that workers will receive their December salary on or before December 20, saying that payment of salary as and when due will start from January next year.

According to him, the state and local government pensioners who are being owed arrears of pensions will also benefit from the directive.