Chairman, Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC), Barrister Isiaka Olagunju has attributed discrepancies and irregularities in account numbers and names on its master list as part of the reasons why some ad-hoc staff engaged in the last local government election are yet to be paid.
Speaking with Tribune Online in his office, on Monday, the OYSIEC Chairman explained that the commission, on a daily basis, received messages from banks about problems of wrong numbers, irregular Biometric Verification Numbers (BVN) submitted by the ad-hoc staff.
Stating that the process of payment of the about 10,000 Adhoc staff began two weeks, he said immediately the banks detect a problem with payment, the commission immediately sends for the concerned electoral officers for further clarification or verification.
Olagunju explained that the commission last Friday sent another updated payment schedule, expressing optimism that more people engaged across the 4,500 polling units in the state were getting paid.
He explained that the commission did not even deal with its original list because some of the ad-hoc staff did not report at their polling units, as expected, hence the commission had to engage emergency ad-hoc staff on election day.
However, Olagunju called for patience noting that the commission is keen on clarity and transparency and would not want to give public funds to the wrong persons.
He added that the commission was also being meticulous because the various ad-hoc staff are not to receive the same amount of money across the board.
Addressing Nigerian Tribune’s question on the situation, he said, “I will say Yes and No. Yes in the sense that we have paid some. We have over 4,500 polling units and in each polling unit, you are supposed to have a minimum of two personnel, which means over 9,500 personnel.
“Paying thousands of staff takes a process. There are some of these ad-hoc staff that we posted to polling units and some of them did not show up and we have our names on our list. It will be very wrong of us to now base our payment on the master (original) list that we have.
“Some of them did not even report at the polling unit that we had to make an emergency engagement for those staff that did not show up. So, for clarity and transparency sake, we asked the electoral officers to submit the names of their staff that actually appeared on that day which they did.
“We asked electoral officers to submit that report and we went through it and found some anomalies. First, imagine somebody whose name is Abiola Olagunju in the polling unit which reflects in our own master list, by the time the person is submitting the account number, he submits the account number of Dapo Ademola.
“How do we pay Dapo Ademola when it is Abiola Olagunju that appeared on our record that actually signed the form EC8A? Those are the discrepancies that we have.
“Some even submitted wrong account numbers. The majority of them submitted the wrong account numbers. So how do we pay? By the time we paid, most of the feedback we got from the bank is that the account is not correct.
“So, we have asked the electoral officers to go back to their local government areas to look at the challenges we have, correct them and bring them back.
“As of Friday, we have sent the payment schedule of the entire 33 local government areas to the bank. I can assure you that many have received while some have not received.
“Those that have not received it because the account number provided is different from the name we have on our list or the account number is even not correct. We don’t intend to owe anybody; anybody that has worked for us must be paid and they will be paid. We just need them to exercise a little patience.
“We started payment over two weeks ago and it is a continuous process. From our own end, we have sent the payment schedule to the bank, it is the bank that gives us daily feedback about the problems encountered. When they have a problem, they bring it and we send it to the electoral officers for further clarification or verification.”
“How can I pay someone whose name does not appear on my list? You gave me a name different from the account number. How can I pay you? “There are thousands of people like that. It is a public fund and we must ensure that it is spent judiciously.”
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