C' River Recruits 4000 LG Workers, Uncovers 800 Ghost Staff In Payroll
By Judex OKORO
The Cross River Local Government Service Commission says it has recruited about 4000 staff into the 18 council areas of the state in the last one year.
The Chairman of the commission, Mr Darlington Eyo, who stated this during an interactive session with newsmen in Calabar on Tuesday, disclosed that the commission uncovered about 800 ghost workers in the payroll.
He further disclosed that they inherited a depleted local government staff of about 9000, adding that with the 4000 personnel already recruited, efforts are still ongoing to fill the remaining vacant spaces.
He said that the mass recruitment approved by Gov. Bassey Otu under his “People First Mantra” was the first in 37 years.
He said: "The ongoing verification and personnel auditing across the local government areas have revealed so much and the government is up to the task against the cartels behind this.
"On the issue of ghost workers within the system we are tackling the challenge head on. When you go to the field you will not find anybody but the nominal roll is high up there.
"We swung into action by conducting a verification and personnel auditing which has unearthed so much and so far 800 ghost workers have been uncovered and deleted them from the voucher.
"The personnel auditing and verification will be an ongoing process by the Commission and at any time the ghost workers are discovered they will be promptly deleted.
"So far, about 4,000 new workers have been recruited into the local government system within the last one year based on merit and fair spread across the state,"he stated.
Bassey said this is a sustainable empowerment by the government and it better than giving handouts.
He debunked rumours of job racketeering in the recruitment process saying the commission has a zero policy on this, adding that a tax force is in place to crack down on any one implicated in the vice and one suspect has been apprehended and charged to court thus far.
