Cross River State Head of Service, Innocent Eteng, has assured civil servants in the state that the recent verification exercise by state and local government staff is not aimed at reducing staff numbers.
He stated that the verification exercise was a directive from His Excellency, Prince Bassey Otu, aimed at sanitizing the payroll system, emphasizing that the exercise was not meant to witch-hunt or punish any civil servant or pensioners because his policy trust is people-oriented.
“He has earlier directed that there should be a comprehensive personnel audit to verify the actual wage bill of Cross River State because his intention is not to owe workers any dime.
“You may recall that there was a statewide audit verification, including pensioners, and that the first exercise was futile because the results did not match the wage bill. So he said we should look at it and sanitize it a little further. That is why the office of the SSG liaised with my office to conduct another verification exercise related to bank verification.
“The methodology adopted was that the files of workers should be perused, and the nominal roll of the entire civil/public service should be matched with the payrolls to see if there are irregularities and disparities. That was the purpose of the exercise.
The HoS revealed that the payroll of the Cross River State government has 53,734 persons. Out of this number, 48,552 underwent bank verification, and only 40,311 have been cleared up to date for payment of January salaries.
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“As I speak with you, a good number of people have gotten their salaries. Those who have not received their salaries are those who have issues. A good number of those files have been sorted out and cleared.
“The Primary Health Care Development Agency alone has a total of 2,868 persons. Out of this number, 2,789 have been cleared for payment of salaries, and 77 of those persons are undergoing sorting—meaning we are still sorting their files to identify irregularities. Those who have not been paid are those who have issues.
“For the Local Government staff, we have a total of 4,229 persons. Out of this number, 3,366 have been cleared, and 863 are currently undergoing sorting.
“In the State Universal Basic Education Board, we have a total number of 14,410 staff. Out of this number, 13,286 staff have been cleared for payment of January salary, and 139 are undergoing sorting.
“For the state civil service, we have a total number of 12,526 staff. 10,486 have been cleared for payment of January salary, and there is a total of 2,040 staff with issues due to irregularities that we are still trying to reconcile.
“Those with duplicate names in the payroll are 429, and those with names repeated in various banks and payrolls have been identified and sorted out. Of this number, 1,964 are undergoing sorting as we try to match the records.
“We have a total number of pensioners, 19,701 in the state, both Local Government and state. Out of this number, 11,253 have been cleared for January payment. There are 251 pensioners with the same account number, and 14,419 underwent bank verification. The exercise aims to be very thorough and transparent.
Eteng also said the governor is making every effort to bring the unemployed into the system.
“We cannot have a system where several youths are unemployed. Therefore, he intends to run a state where people with certificates are brought into the system, and the only way he can do that is to clean the payroll. That is why that exercise was undertaken.
“The intention is that those who are not working should not be paid a salary, and we cannot have persons who are not working on our payroll. We do not blame this on any MDAs or any person, but we know that the act of irregularities is bound to exist in the system, and those irregularities must be cut if we want to carry the state forward,” he reiterated.
The vision of His Excellency is that Cross River State workers should enjoy the dividends of democracy; they should not be owed salaries. As I speak, almost everyone that’s cleared is going to receive a salary today because the mandate has been sent to the bank already.
The mission of the exercise was not to downsize; His Excellency has not instructed anybody to downsize. I have not received such instructions, and I can tell you authoritatively that he has directed that people should be paid their salaries.
Those who will not receive their salaries are requested to come to the office of the Head of Service and Secretary to the State Government to sort out the issues they have.
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